The Wellington Phoenix’s achievements over the past year will be celebrated at the Āti Awa Toa Wellington Regional Sports Awards 2024, with the club finalists in five categories.
The awards acknowledge, promote, and celebrate the contribution that sport makes to the wider Wellington region, covering the period between April 1, 2023 and April 1 this year.
The Phoenix are in the running for the club of the year award, after both men’s and women’s first teams ended their 2023-24 seasons with record finishing positions and points tallies.
Young Wellingtonians were given the chance to shine, with homegrown talents like Emma Main and Lukas Kelly-Heald becoming regular starters after excelling at the academy.
The club also showed strong community engagement with initiatives like Football for All, an award-winning programme which helped remove the barriers to allow over a thousand participants to play football this year.
The men’s first team are finalists for team of the year following a banner campaign.
Finishing the Isuzu UTE A-League regular season as runners-up, the team only missed out on the grand final due to an agonising extra-time semi-final defeat.
Wellington rallied behind the team, culminating in a record 33,298 fans attending the semi-final against Melbourne Victory.
The Phoenix are also in the running for three individual accolades.
Giancarlo Italiano has been recognised for his incredible first season as a professional head coach by being named a finalist for the coach of the year category.
Italiano defied expectations to lead the Nix men to within touching distance of the club’s first major trophy and Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) members voted him the coach of the A-League men’s team of the season.
Alex Paulsen is a finalist for sportsperson of the year award, after being the best men’s goalkeeper across the season and keeping 12 clean sheets.
His performances have already seen him receive numerous accolades. Paulsen scooped three gongs at the Phoenix awards night in April, he was voted captain of the Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) team of the year and was named the A-League goalkeeper of the year, joint winner of the young A-League footballer of the year award and fans’ A-League player of the year.
He was rewarded with a landmark move to English Premier League side A.F.C. Bournemouth in June.
Finally, Lukas Kelly-Heald is nominated in the rangatahi sportsperson of the year, for the best athlete under the age of 20.
The towering left-back started the year as a reserve team standout and ended it as a first team fixture and All Whites squad member.
Kelly-Heald was the youngest defender to be a regular starter across the Isuzu UTE A-League, and also chipped in with two assists in his 18 starts.
Academy club photographer Ryan Imray is also a finalist for the volunteer of the year award.
The Wellington Regional Sports Awards will be held on Thursday, October 24 at the Alan Gibbs Centre at Wellington College.
Wellington Phoenix finalists for the Āti Awa Toa Wellington Regional Sports Awards 2024:
Club of the year – Wellington Phoenix
Team of the year – Wellington Phoenix men’s first team
Coach of the year – Giancarlo Italiano
Sportsperson of the year – Alex Paulsen
Rangatahi sportsperson of the year – Lukas Kelly-Heald
