Expanded 10-team AFLW competition set to stay an eight-week season
UPDATE: AFLW star Daisy Pearce has laid out her solution to the women’s footy fixturing debate — and why the AFL won’t like it.
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UPDATE: AFLW star Daisy Pearce has called on the AFL to back women’s football against tennis and cricket as a summer mainstay.
Pearce championed a scheme that mirrored a schedule published by the Herald Sun on Saturday that would see the expanded 10-team league kick off in early January.
The season would accommodate a full nine-game home and away series plus two weeks of finals, finishing before Round 1 of the AFL.
Under the AFL’s current thinking, AFLW clubs stand to play fewer home-and-away games next year - as few as six - despite the league growing by two teams.
After the proposal was revealed last week in the Herald Sun, players and senior figures in women’s sport labelled it a “joke”, “disrespectful” and a “backward step”.
Pearce said it would create a ‘gimmicky tournament’.
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Pearce proposed starting next year’s AFLW season on January 5 to allow each team to play each other once before a semi-final weekend, then the grand final.
Under the Melbourne captain’s plan, first would play fourth and second would play third with the winners facing off in the decider on March 17.
“So the season runs for 11 weeks and the grand final lands the week before the AFL (season starts) so you’re not going head-to-head with your own product,” she said on AFL Gameday.
“You do go up against the Australian Open and Big Bash at times, but with clever fixturing I think you can get around it.”
Pearce said she knew the plan would face opposition from AFL headquarters.
“The commercial reality of broadcasting, trying to fit it in a time frame where there isn’t a lot of competition against other sports, I understand that,” Pearce said.
“Those reasons have been made pretty clear, but I’d ask, are those reasons right?
“When you’re trying to offer an elite, professional women’s competition and be the premier product and sport of choice in this country, I wonder whether that’s realistic or the right decision.”
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan last Friday confirmed the league favoured an exclusive February-March AFLW window where competition with other sports was minimised.
The AFL is yet to sign a broadcast deal with Foxtel and Chanel Seven for 2019.
Most players canvassed by the Herald Sun ranked season integrity well above broadcast exposure as the top issue to be resolved by the game’s governors.
On Friday, McLachlan has defended the shorted season, by comparing it with the World Cup, which only lasts four weeks.
“The World Cup goes for four weeks. I don’t think anyone’s calling that mickey mouse,” he said.
The face of the AFLW and Melbourne captain Daisy Pearce today slammed league bosses over the plans for the 2019 season, saying it is a backwards step that would make it a “gimmicky tournament”.
“It doesn’t sit well with me or a lot of the players is the temperature I’m taking,” Pearce said.
“I get that there’s a commercial reality that they want to keep this competition within the little eight-week timeslot where there’s no sport.
“I thought when those two new teams come in I was rubbing my hands together. I thought we were going to get a legitimate competition here, play everyone once and head into a finals series, you beauty.
“But it seems not to be the case.
“The reason it annoys me is this is presented as the women’s AFL elite professional offering by the AFL and it has been lauded as that, that finally there’s an elite women’s competition. But with the AFL presenting it as that, it comes with a level of expectation.
“In reality this is a gimmicky tournament.”
Eight teams played seven home-and-away games this year, followed by a grand final. But in a revamped fixture, teams could play six home-and-away games, followed by two weeks of finals.
The potential changes have left former Magpie turned Kangaroo Mo Hope wondering if playing in the AFLW is worth the trouble.
“It makes me question if it’s all worth it,” she wrote on her Instagram page.
“Is it worth waking up at 4am every morning to train before work, declining friends’ invitations to (social events) so I don’t have a drink and ruin my training and ensure I’m being the ‘role model’ for young girls and boys, missing family holidays, using all my work annual leave days on game days or weekend games, taking constant abuse and being bullied from randoms on social media and in public, being treated like a product, not a person.
“Is it all worth it? It’s not about me, it’s about the future and I will stand for the future of the game.”
The AFL Players Association won’t stand for the proposed reduction in home-and-away games with union boss Paul Marsh saying the AFL’s plan lacked vision and was painting the future of the competition in a negative light.
“We understand the AFLW competition is in its infancy and we all need to work together to make it grow. What we believe is missing is the vision for where this competition is going,” AFLPA boss Paul Marsh said.
“A reduction in games sends a message that the future for AFLW is not as positive as what we believe it should be given the momentum it has built. We also have a belief that AFLW could and should be the biggest and most successful women’s sports league in Australia.
“We are currently meeting with players around the country and there is a significant level of frustration with the proposed reduction in games.
“We are continuing to talk to the AFL about what the season should look like next year and beyond and what contracts and support needs to be put around the players going forward.
“Given the proximity to the 2019 season, we need some certainty shortly. AFLW players are not yet full-time professionals and as such have to juggle various competing priorities for their time.”
Players are already training for 2019, without being paid, and one said the level of sacrifice for potentially such a short season was a “slap in the face”.
The AFLW’s Competition Committee will have its first meeting next week.
It’s understood the league wants to keep its February-March timeslot, but play the grand final on the weekend before AFL Round 1.
This would mean squeezing eight rounds of action — six home-and-away games and two weeks of finals — into seven weeks, which could be done by teams playing three games in the first two weeks.
The AFLW decider has been played on the Saturday of the AFL’s opening weekend in the past two seasons.
I love moving across the country for months, leaving my family behind to play a 6 week season 🙄🙄 When the pre season is twice as long as the actual season, something is wrong!
— Georgie Parker (@georgieparker) August 2, 2018
Don’t bring new teams in if you can’t accommodate for them!! @AFL #pissed https://t.co/2VIBSetloV
I understand the need and the AFL’s desire to maximise the commerciality of AFLW, but I don’t think a 6 game season will be able to do that anyway, doesn't less games = less commercial opportunities? As an athlete it’ll be hard to justify the sacrifices we make for 6 games.
— Lily Mithen (@lily_mithen) August 3, 2018
A two-conference model, in which the 10 teams are split in half and play four games in their group before crossing over for the fifth game, plus two weeks of finals, has also been mooted.
Some players want a nine-game regular season, playing every team once, plus finals.
Pearce said the AFL needed to “bite the bullet” and invest in the competition to help continue its growth and standard.
“This is like a start-up business. You’re never going to get the return on those investments straight up, you have to wait,” Pearce told SEN.
“As long as it’s an eight-week competition it will remain at a level that isn’t elite and professional.
“It will remain at that level until we take that plunge.”
Collingwood’s cross-code recruit and Olympian Georgie Parker, who played her first AFLW season this year, also slammed the AFL.
“When the pre-season is twice as long as the actual season, something is wrong,” she tweeted.
“Don’t bring new teams in if you can’t accommodate for them.”
McLachlan says no decision has been made on the format but denied a short season made it a “mickey mouse” competition.
McLachlan said the league liked the clean air in the sporting landscape after the Australian Open to hold AFLW and did not want to hurt the VFLW and other state leagues by cutting into their seasons.
“The World Cup goes for four weeks. I don’t think anyone’s calling that mickey mouse,” he said.
“In an ideal world Daisy’s saying everyone plays each other once and I understand that.”
McLachlan says AFLW is still a priority.
“No decision’s been made. There’s a discussion about the format for AFLW next year,” he said.
“We’re making decisions with a 30-year view, not in year three.
“There is no bigger priority for us in AFL head office than AFLW and women’s football.”
6 mths ago my daughter started playing AFL, I always steered her away from footy because I didn’t see a pathway until AFLW started. The girls game is going crazy, don’t stuff it up @AFL because she goes ok at other sports with clear pathways to the elite level pic.twitter.com/tMjYPnXRaW
— Matthew Lappin (@skinnylappin) August 3, 2018
However, McLachlan’s World Cup comments did not sit well with athletes and fans.
In response, former Australian soccer player Craig Moore said, “Thought people in these jobs worked a little harder at knowing the competitors.”
I reckon I stick up for @AFL more than most on Twitter but this AFLW decision is dumbfounding. For Gil to dismissively compare a short season to the the soccer World Cup demonstrates this is a minor AFL issue. It shouldn’t be!!
— Peter Guley (@peteguley) August 3, 2018
Very sad analogy. Provides an insight into the lame thinking & foresight. Out of his depth.
— Grant Thomas (@Thomo_Grant) August 3, 2018
Give the #AFLW players and fans the respect they deserve. To compare their scheduling to FIFA World Cup is ludicrous. Why hold back the game’s growth?
— Rowland (@rolowears27) August 3, 2018
HOW THE AFLW DRAW COULD WORK
How AFLW could steal a march on the tennis and accommodate a full draw with finals before Round 1 of the AFL
A-LEAGUE
October 19-May 18/19
WOMEN’S BBL
December 1-January 26
B IG BASH LEAGUE
December 19-February 17
AFLW
Nine home-and-away rounds plus two weekends of finals from January 5-March 16
AUSTRALIAN OPEN TENNIS
January 14-27
AFL ROUND 1
Starts Thursday, March 21
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