By Alice de Koster-Kitto 16/3/25
Above: Ann Odong speaking at Game Changers. Photo: Anna Kucera/ Cassandra Hannagan. Sydney Opera House.
This past weekend I, along with 200 women’s football fans, attended ‘Game Changers’ as part of the Sydney Opera House’s ‘All About Women’ festival. Designed to celebrate the growth in women’s sports over the recent years, as well as bring awareness to difficult topics within the space that often go unnoticed in these discussions.
The panel brought together a diverse group of women in sport, featuring Matildas veteran goal-keeper, Lydia Williams, Matildas head of PR and Media, Ann Odong, inaugural AFLW Premiership coach Bec Goddard, long-time AFLW player Kirby Bently, and was moderated by renowned broadcaster and journalist Tracey Holmes.
The sheer diversity of the event, from the speakers to attendees, and their varied opinions, made for an invaluable experience, and one that I personally, will take with me as I move in the world of women’s sport, and as a woman in today’s world.
Although the issues with diversity and acceptance have been recently highlighted, along with the clear bias that Australian media in particular, has with women’s sports – despite what it can and has done for the country – being in a room with so many empowered women, both on the microphone, and sitting in the crowd, truly highlighted the community that has been built around women’s sport. This was a uniquely empowering experience that has personally brought me a sense of hope in what has been a quite unsettling time in the space.
These recent ongoing issues were not shied away from during the discussion, and no topic was off-limits. From recent criticisms of the Matildas to the media coverage of Sam Kerr’s recent trial, and addressing comments made by Marty Sheargold, from the perspective of those directly involved.
It was refreshing to see the range of perspectives throughout the room and to see women so unafraid to stand up for their beliefs, and to say what they meant, making it feel more like a true discussion and meeting of minds, rather than sitting in a room, listening to a talk.
One of the points made by Odong, which was reinforced by the rest of the panel along with a room of nodding heads, is one that I myself have tried to articulate for some time. That is, the argument of ‘men’s football is better football’ and the concept of parity with the men’s game, is somewhat void, as women’s sport is, and should be, a different product entirely.
This conversation was the catalyst for a slew of further talking points, including the debate about whether we should strive to achieve equality or equity, and how these two very different goals should be approached very differently.
‘When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression’ was a sentiment that was echoed throughout the discussion, as the panelists reflected on how and why these industries and the women that have built them, deserve equity over equality, in providing the same opportunities and resources as men in their field while allowing them to select and shape how they use what has been provided to create this unique, yet ultimately just as valuable product.
Quite often there was a dialogue regarding the consumerism of women’s sports, and how the sudden rise in interest in fanfare has led to unrealistic expectations set for female athletes, particularly the Matildas, and the criticism that comes along with this.
As said by Matildas head of PR and Media Ann Odong, ‘We wanted to transform how people saw what was possible for women and girls’, a sentiment that is reinforced by not only the turnout of this event but by the continued and ever-growing turnout for women’s sports both on and off the pitch.
With such sudden growth within women’s football and sport in general, alongside the communities that have been built, it can be easy to get caught up in a bubble as a fan, a player, or a professional and lose sight of how far we do have to go as an industry, and the limitation that is still put upon us. Although the hour was no lack of informative and important conversations that brought light to these issues within the hour, the biggest takeaway from the event, was the validation that people would show up for women’s sports beyond the major tournaments and historic wins, proving that women’s sports always has been, and now more than ever, is much more important than the results on the pitch.
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