AFL women’s league chance for clubs to build female supporter and membership bases, North Melbourne chief Carl Dilena says

CLUBS granted the first licences to the national women’s league will have a competitive advantage, North Melbourne boss Carl Dilena says.

North Melbourne has strong links with Melbourne University Women’s Football Club. Picture: Tony Gough

CLUBS granted the first licenses to enter teams in next year’s historic national women’s competition will have a competitive advantage in building female supporter and membership bases, according to North Melbourne boss Carl Dilena.

The Kangaroos, like seven other Victorian clubs, tabled bids with the AFL on Friday seeking a license.

Dilena said his club’s proposal stood on its merits and that he believed no club had done more in the women’s football space over the past six years than the Roos.

However, the club’s bid also seeks to make the point that the granting of licenses will have an effect of the AFL’s wider competitive balance aims.

It is expected that in the first year of the competition there will be eight teams, with four from Victoria. Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs, who have had teams for the past four years, are expected to be granted licenses.

Dilena said the club had prepared a model for running a female team that was “low-cost, low-risk, ready to roll and commercially viable straight away”.

“We are very prepared and have a long history in women’s football to hit the ground running,” Dilena said.

“From our perspective we’ve got an existing and robust model for women’s football given our existing and long-term partnership with Melbourne University Women’s Football Club. They are the biggest women’s football club in Australia.

“They train here at Arden St and we support them with player development and mentoring from our coaches.

“They have been able to develop about 10 players who have played in the existing Melbourne and Western Bulldogs teams. So their talent pathways are excellent.”

North Melbourne chief executive Carl Dilena. Picture: Sam Rosewarne

Dilena said the expansion of the club’s award-winning Huddle community program into Wyndham — through the alliance with VFL affiliate Werribee — and into Tasmania where the Roos will run a junior academy, would also aid in the development of girl’s and women’s football.

Dilena said the financial inequities in the AFL were largely driven by relative supporter-base size which influences fixtures, TV exposure as well as membership and sponsorship revenue.

“If you are looking at the longer-term strategy of the AFL, to reduce these inequities the AFL needs to undertake policies which assist smaller supporter based clubs to grow their supporter and membership bases. That is just logical,” he said.

“The concern that I have is that those clubs that receive the first round of licenses will have a competitive advantage in building the female supporter and membership bases as well as their club’s overall brand profile.

“If you just hand licenses to the bigger clubs, you are just reinforcing the inequities in the competition.

“In the interest of competitive balance and the longer term strategic objectives the AFL, it would be logical to grant licenses to clubs such as ourselves who are really striving to grow our supporter bases and being very competitive in the competition.”

AFL game development boss Simon Lethlean said yesterday the submissions delivered to the AFL on Friday were “impressive”

“A credit to those 13 clubs that submitted — a lot of effort, a lot of time and a lot of thinking,” he said.

Lethlean said if the quality of bids demanded it, the AFL could look to include more than eight teams.