Lisa Alexander says AFL must do more to promote women coaches

Elite coach Lisa Alexander, who has called for quotas in both the men and women’s AFL coaching ranks, says the AFL Commission led by chair Richard Goyder must address the gender inequality.

Former Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander has called on the AFL to do more to promote women in AFL Picture: Wayne Taylor

Australian netball coaching great Lisa Alexander says the AFL commission must do more when it comes to women.

Alexander, who has called for quotas in both the men and women’s AFL coaching ranks, says the AFL commission led by chair Richard Goyder to address the gender inequality in the elite game.

“My question to the chair of the board Richard Goyder is; what is going on? You need to do more for women in coaching,” Alexander told The Australian.

“Get on with it. This is ridiculous. The AFL is as big as one of our biggest companies, if you look at the money that they earn and also the amount of government money that goes to them … they should actually be coming under the quota systems that are starting to be put in place in the state governments.”

“I know there are programs to promote women, I know (AFL coaching development manager) Julia Lawrence and (AFL general manager of women’s football) Nic Livingstone are trying to redress the imbalance but more advocacy needs to be done. We need men supporting us as well.”

Alexander’s comments came after she was mistakenly linked to the Collingwood men’s coaching job and Nick Dal Santo was announced as St Kilda’s AFLW coach – making it 14 men in charge of the AFL women’s teams.

Dal Santo’s appointment has rankled many women in the AFL space on two levels.

“It was also upsetting that this was just another guy getting an AFLW gig,” said one source, who did not want to be named.

Although Alexander has not applied for the Collingwood senior coaching job, as reported, she maintains she would still like to coach in the AFL.

“I was serious when I applied for the North Melbourne job last year because I actually thought I could make a difference,” Alexander said.

“I thought I had enough experience in high performance and creating cultural change, which is the dynamics and mechanics to do the change that was made and now David Noble‘s doing it. You know, I’m really pleased that he’s doing a good job …. and I’ve got a text message from one of the AFL coaches who told me he knows that I could do it (be a senior coach).”

Alexander coached Australia from 2011 to 2020, with the Diamonds winning gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2015 Netball World Cup, plus silver at the 2018 and 2019 versions of those respective events.

Alexander said she was well supported privately by former Wallabies coaches Eddie Jones and Michael Cheika.

In early July the AFL appointed Rhonda Brighton-Hall to examine equal-opportunity policies, workplace training to counter discrimination and harassment and the complaints-handling process at the game’s head office.