WNBA star Erin Phillips signs with Adelaide Crows

ADELAIDE has confirmed two-time WNBA championship player Erin Phillips has signed with its inaugural women’s team for next year.

Olympic basketballer Erin Phillips has knocked back a lucrative WNBL offer to play for Adelaide’s women's football team.

ADELAIDE has confirmed two-time WNBA championship player Erin Phillips has signed with its inaugural women’s team for next year.

As revealed by The Advertiser on Monday, the Crows have lured Phillips away from Port Adelaide where her father Greg is a club legend and which had claimed her as one of their own before abandoning plans to bid for one of the eight licences in the new competition.

Phillips will join pre-season training in late November before games start in February.

Phillips, 31, is currently in the US with her WNBA team the Dallas Wings and revealed she had been approached by Crows chief executive Andrew Fagan and football boss Phil Harper before the Rio Olympics in August. She had to seek approval from Dallas which gave her its blessing to be part of the competition.

“Having grown up in a sporting family watching dad play football professionally it’s definitely always been something I wanted to do and now I get this opportunity and I’m really grateful,” Phillips said.

“I don’t think we really know the full significance yet, we’re kind of just brushing the surface for how big this league could be. I think it’s going to be huge.”