Most football stakeholders will admit the W-League has not been a high priority in recent weeks. To some extent it's understandable and not entirely unexpected. The season was done and dusted before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the suspension of all football, and left Football Federation Australia and A-League clubs scrambling to get the competition back up and running in time to salvage the broadcast deal with Fox Sports.
Unsurprisingly, the W-League looms as the competition most likely to be scaled back if the game's already-precarious finances are left in tatters by Fox Sports' potential departure.
To some clubs, Australia's top-tier women's competition is still viewed as high cost and little return. Despite its invaluable role in elite women's sport, it relies on revenue generated elsewhere to survive. As one senior club source conceded: "The main product is the A-League. Without the main product we won’t have other things."
The 12-game regular W-League season costs clubs between $400,000 and $700,000, not including operational and logistical costs incurred by FFA. So fine are the margins in the women's game, the governing body could not afford to add two extra rounds to the regular season to make it a full home-and-away campaign. With the game staring down the barrel of losing its $57 million-a-year Fox Sports contract, several senior club sources have indicated grave concerns about their ability to fund the W-League in its existing format.
Even as the game wades into even greater financial uncertainty than already existed, the players' union believes Australian football will suffer more in the long term by not keeping its elite women's league in place.
“We need to accept the fact that the economics of Australian football will be fundamentally challenged and changed by COVID-19," Professional Footballers Australia chief executive John Didulica said. “This, however, shouldn’t mean that our principles shift. Empowering girls and women to aspire to become the best in the world should remain an unchanged value, and the W-League is central to this."
It would not be tough for the clubs to scale back or cut their W-League squads. Across the competition, only five players are contracted for next season.
While FFA chief executive James Johnson is not willing to go down that road, he wields less control over the competition than his predecessors. As part of the A-League's glacial transition towards independence from FFA, clubs have greater influence over the administration of the W-League and National Youth League.
"The two competitions that have gone with the A-League are the W-League and the National Youth League and both the W-League and the National Youth League are of a huge strategic importance to the FFA," Johnson said. "The W-League needs to be a priority. You need to have a top tier women’s competition."
No club wants to wind back the W-League, but few can guarantee its survival for next season. However, Perth Glory's owner will do everything in his power to keep it. Tony Sage has not yet discussed the future of the competition with other owners, but has vowed to retain his W-League side even if it means sacrificing his male youth program.
"It would have to take the most dire of financial positions to even contemplate cutting it," Sage said. "We would have to cut the Y-League [youth league] before anything would be decided on the W-League."
The PFA believes the pandemic could provide an opportunity for football to make up ground on other women's sports. As history has shown, small investments in women's sport yield big returns. With other codes facing financial burdens of their own, the clubs and FFA could seize an opportunity to reinvigorate the W-League if they can find new investment and means to market it.
“We will need to be creative and innovative with how we not only maintain, but build on this commitment to the W-League," Didulica said. "This might mean different local partnerships and international partnerships to ensure we can better deliver the competition and better develop players. But we simply cannot afford is for women’s football to get stuck in the financial rip current that we will experience.”
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