Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has told the Australian public to “watch this space” when it comes to more funding for women’s sport in the wake of the Matildas’ World Cup successes.
Key points:
- Football players and fans are calling for more investment in the women’s game
- The opposition has pledged $250 million if it wins government, hoping states will match the figure
- The government criticised the opposition’s credentials over the sports rorts saga
With much of the country swept up in football fever, pressure has been mounting on politicians to match platitudes with investment in the sport.
“We don’t need a public holiday, we need more funding,” Fitzroy Lions soccer coach Hayley Truskewycz told ABC’s Oliver Gordon for AM.
“We in fact have a waiting list, and we can’t find enough coaches. And we don’t have enough grounds, so we’re restricted by our resources and our facilities.”
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Opposition Leader Peter Dutton this week pledged $250 million for grassroots women’s sport if the coalition wins government.
He wants the states to match that figure, bringing it to $500 million.
“We’ve still got young girls who are going to soccer games getting changed in the car or in the car park, which is completely unacceptable,” he told Today.
But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese slammed the opposition’s credentials on funding women’s grassroots sports, pointing to the Morrison government’s sports rorts scandal.
“He sat in a cabinet that provided women’s sports programs to clubs that didn’t have women’s teams,” Mr Albanese told Sky News.
“Watch this space. We’ve been considering issues of sporting infrastructure and these issues for a long period of time.
“We’ll make an announcement at an appropriate time.”
Matildas captain Sam Kerr highlighted the call for more funding after the team’s loss to England’s Lionesses.
“We need funding in our development. We need funding in our grassroots. We need funding. We need funding everywhere,” she said.
“The comparison to other sports isn’t really good enough. And hopefully, this tournament changes that because that’s the legacy you leave — not what you do on the pitch. The legacy is what you do off the pitch.”
Chloe Logarzo, who plays for Western United in the A-League and competed with the Matildas in the last World Cup, said investment was needed in stadiums and training facilities from governments and sponsors.
“We need people to be able to come to the games and help support us, because we don’t just want to let what happened in this last month slip away, we want to be able to capitalise on it,” she told ABC News 24.
“Imagine what it could be like if we had the right investment, and where the national team could go — maybe win a World Cup and have an Olympic gold medal.”
Women earning a quarter of men’s World Cup prize money
Disparities between the men’s and women’s game are stark.
The men’s World Cup prize pool was $US440 million ($686 million). The women’s World Cup prize pool is a quarter of that, at $US110 million.
In the Australian A-League, women are contracted for 35 weeks a year, compared to 52 weeks for men, giving female athletes a smaller pay packet.
Central Coast Mariners goalkeeper Sarah Langman told 7.30 she was not paid for her first season playing with the A-League, and was paid just $1,200 in her second season. The minimum wage for players will be $25,000 for the upcoming season.
Ms Truskewycz, a former A-League player who is completing a PhD on women’s football and diversity, said elite pathways can be too expensive for young players.
“They’re actually quite hard to break into if you don’t have the support and the financial means,” she said.
Australian Professional Leagues is seeking $12 million in federal funding to capitalise on the Matildas success.
Danny Townsend, chief executive of the APL, said the response from Sports Minister Anika Wells had been “very positive”, but no money had been committed yet.
“We’re not asking for a handout, we’re investing alongside that … but we can’t do that alone,” he told Afternoon Briefing.
“The sooner we can get that, the sooner we can start planning more investment into the game, and ensuring that a 12-year-old aspiring female footballer has the same opportunities as a male, and that’s not the case currently.
“The development pathway for future Matildas is the Liberty A-League Women, and that competition has been going now for 16 years, all of which has been privately funded.
“So all the Matildas that we’ve been cheering for the last month have been developed through that pathway, and so far it’s gone completely underfunded.”
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At the community level, he said there was more investment needed in facilities like change rooms, and that volunteers and parents had to put their hands up to coach in the early stages.
Earlier, a government spokesperson said it had committed $84 million to support the Women’s World Cup and its legacy, but did not make any mention of new funding.
They said $44 million was for hosting the tournament and $40 million for grassroots programs like the Miniroos.
They added the Matildas were able to play eight extra international matches in the lead up to the World Cup, as well as “hire a second assistant coach, a psychologist, a sports scientist, a team chef and a team doctor” — saying the Matildas now have equal staffing to the men’s team, the Socceroos.
Will the states chip in?
The South Australian government this week pledged $18 million over three years for dedicated female sporting facilities — the amount it said it would have cost the state to put on a national holiday if the Matildas had won the World Cup.
It said that $10 million was quarantined for women’s soccer, and that Football South Australia would match that figure dollar-for-dollar, bringing the total to $28 million.
New South Wales Sports Minister Steve Kamper said the Matildas’ run “captured the nation” and the state government was committed to continuing to support women’s sport and “fostering the next generation of Matildas”.
“We look forward to making more announcements in this space in the September budget.”
The NSW Labor Party before the election promised to increase funding for Sport NSW to expand female sporting leadership and coaching programs, as well as $3.7 million in the next term for soccer facilities and programs on the Central Coast.
The NSW government also said it would deliver a $10 million NSW Football Legacy Fund, with increasing participation of women and girls as one of its key objectives.
The Northern Territory government highlighted previous funding, including $180,000 a year to Football NT and $700,000 in 2018 for the construction of two new women’s change rooms at Larrakia Park stadium in Darwin, where all senior women’s football matches are played in the territory.
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They said the government also “actively encouraged more girls and women to participate in sports” and created the NT Women in Sport Advisory Committee, which advises the government on improvements for women in sport.
Prior to the World Cup, the Victorian government invested $42 million in the Home of the Matildas, where national squads will be trained, although grassroots community clubs will also have access to the centre’s pitches.
“We proudly back women’s sport and have invested unprecedented amounts in both grassroots infrastructure and elite facilities,” a Victorian government spokesperson said.
They added a “significant portion” of the $213 million in the budget for new or improved community sport infrastructure goes towards supporting women.
Tasmanian Sports Minister Nic Street also highlighted previous investments in women’s sport, including $10 million through the Levelling the Playing Field Grants Program, which has funded 30 projects to provide better facilities for female participants.
He added another $10 million was for local community sports groups to apply for grants, and that eligible projects must develop inclusive sport and recreation infrastructure, and that $10 million had been invested in upgrades at four soccer facilities across the state.
The other states and territories have been contacted for comment.
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