Crows stars Ebony Marinoff and Courtney Cramey discuss the potential impact the coronavirus will have on the AFLW
Adelaide stars Courtney Cramey and Ebony Marinoff say they haven’t received any indication from the club about how the COVID-19 shutdown will impact the AFLW competition into the future. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST.
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Crows stars Courtney Cramey and Ebony Marinoff concede the future of the AFLW competition is up in the air as the league deals with the financial fallout of the coronavirus.
On Sunday, AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan announced the immediate end of the AFLW season – with no 2020 premier announced – while at the same time suspending the men’s season after one round.
Speaking on The Advertiser’s women’s football podcast CJ and the Noff, the dual Crows premiership players said they hadn’t yet been given any indication from their football club about the impact the suspension of the men’s competition could have on the 2021 AFLW season, but both expected there to be ramifications.
“The reality is that the AFL men’s competition needs to get up and running and the boys need to get playing for us to even start talking about what next season looks like for us,” Marinoff said.
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“It’s pretty crazy when you do think about it because the reality is the men don’t know when their 2020 season will get underway again, so I’d think that the AFLW for 2021 is not on the priority list at AFL House at the moment and that’s just the reality we all need to accept.”
Cramey said it was fair to assume there would be impacts on the women’s competition going forward.
“The world we’re living in at the moment is about saving lives and footy isn’t everything, so the industry and a number of (sporting codes) around the country and the world are suffering, and it will just be a matter of how and when we can recoup,” she said.
“We’ve got to wait and see when the men can come back, what that will generate in terms of getting the industry back on track and what that looks like into the future.
“We saw shortened games for the men, that’s the first time they’ve ever played a 16-minute quarter … it’s changing, so whether there’s a reduction in a number of things, footy cap salaries will have to be number one, and the fallout from that will be something different.
“There will just be changes across the board.
“Fixturing could look different, who knows, the men might come back in 2021 and have a conference system like the women’s, who knows?
“It’s just all up in the air at the moment.”
Prior to cancelling the 2020 season on Sunday, the AFL had previously made the decision to play a three-week finals series, instead of fast-tracking to a grand final between the two-top sides from each conference, Fremantle and North Melbourne, after a vote through the Players’ Association.
Marinoff said the league made the right decision to not name a premier.
“At the end of the day, it wouldn’t have been legitimate because the season wasn’t played out,” she said.
“As unfortunate as it is that we don’t see a 2020 AFLW premier, I think it was the right decision.”
Cramey agreed: “To be honest, if Freo and North played it out in a grand final the weekend just gone, would they be truly satisfied knowing that they won that flag in an abridged version of AFLW, knowing that if things weren’t going in the world as crazy as they are now it might be different?
“It was always going to have its controversy around whether we did get a flag winner.”
Originally published as Crows stars Ebony Marinoff and Courtney Cramey discuss the potential impact the coronavirus will have on the AFLW
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