The deal includes HBA Australia - a private health insurance company - taking back-of-shirt sponsorship over the next three years.

Sydney FC stars Mark Rudan, Robbie Middleby, Terry McFlynn and Adam Casey were on hand to announce the partnership this morning at Lindfield Public School in Sydney’s north.

The campaign is geared specifically to encourage junior footballers to maintain active lifestyles and the club vows to conduct training sessions with over 10,000 NSW school children in a year.

Sydney FC CEO George Perry was excited about the initiative, and hopes that it will simultaneously help grow the team’s supporter base. Players will act as ambassadors for the program and will visit junior teams playing in local NSW associations.

“We’re trying to roll out things pretty quickly now. We’ve got a plan in place to have coaching clinics during school holidays and our affiliation with the associations will continue with our players being ambassadors, school visits will re-commence… so there are a number of things going on,” he said.

“We’re delighted that HBA Australia has come on board to help us achieve those objectives.”

At this stage, the program will be concentrated within Sydney but may expand into more regional areas in the future.

“[We’ll go] as far as practical,” Perry explained. “We’ve only got 20 odd players and they’ve got a training schedule to look after so we’ll go as far as we can.

“Robbie and Terry go as far as western Sydney and we’ll see how far that can go. We’re playing in Canberra during the pre-season as well so it’ll be great to spread our word as far as practical.”