The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represent the port city of Fremantle, a stronghold of Australian rules football in Western Australia. The Dockers were the second team from the state to be admitted to the competition, following the West Coast Eagles in 1987. Both Fremantle and the West Coast Eagles are owned by the West Australian Football Commission (WAFC), with a board of directors operating Fremantle on the commission's behalf. Despite having participated in and won several finals matches, Fremantle is one of only three active AFL clubs not to have won a premiership (the others being Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney), though it did claim a minor premiership in 2015 and reach the 2013 Grand Final, losing to Hawthorn. High-profile players who forged careers at Fremantle include All-Australian Matthew Pavlich, Hall of Fame inductee Peter Bell, and dual Brownlow Medal winner Nat Fyfe, who captains the club under head coach Justin Longmuir. Originally based at Fremantle Oval, the club's training and administrative facilities are now located nearby at Cockburn ARC in Cockburn Central, whilst its home ground is the 60,000-capacity Perth Stadium in Burswood. Fremantle has also fielded a women's team in the AFL Women's league since the competition's inception in 2017. They were coached by Trent Cooper and captained by Hayley Miller in 2022. Their most successful season was the 2020 season, in which the team was undefeated, but was ultimately cancelled without a premiership awarded due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
