By Kieran Yap 29/1/26
Above: The PFA’s Ready For Takeoff Report.
It is in the best interests of the APL to support the Ready For Takeoff vision presented by the A-League Women players and the PFA.
Last week, the PFA launched their vision for the future of women’s football in Australia. It is an almost inarguable, thoroughly researched and exciting proposal to rapidly catch up with the rest of the world and re-establish the A-League Women as a top league in the world.
On top of that, it holds the keys to saving the domestic sport in this country and getting the local professional game to where the APL has always claimed it should be, and not just for the women. This plan holds the key to filling stadiums and making this league a destination for the top players, and the full professionalism of the women’s league can overcome the hurdles faced by the APL in the past.
Ready For Takeoff features four pillars to launch the sport beyond where it has ever been and where it should be.
Pillar One is Fit For Purpose Governance, Pillar Two is Effective Fan Engagement, Three is a Reformed Football Economy and Four is Suitable Matchday Infrastructure.
There are shortcomings in the current A-League Women setup, and they are detailed and remedied in the proposal.
The majority of players do not view the A-League Women as the best playing destination. The pay is unsustainable, at just over $25,00 per year it only reaches minimum wage in Australia through some creative and cynical interpretations of time.
Additionally, A-League women are employed by the same privately owned business to do the same job, yet are paid on average a quarter of what the men receive. To be blunt, there is nothing to support a pay discrepancy this large, it is wrong and needs to be rectified.
Another issue raised is a glaring lack of visibility.
A-League Women’s fans report being unaware of match broadcasts and kickoff times, as well as a lack of promotion of players, something that The Matildas have excelled at and shown good, measurable results from.
A key thing that Ready For Takeoff points out is that the APL Board does not have a sufficient focus on women’s football, either in the make up or track record.
The A-League Women has no independence from the men’s side of the game, meaning in effect it is often an afterthought at best, and openly seen as a charity case at worse.
Former Mariners owner Richard Peil was quoted in Code Football as saying, “If I spend $50,000 on a 17 year old female player, the reality is there is no transfer…I’ve put $700,000 into the women’s game in my first season and I’m never going to get that back.
“There is no mechanism for me to benefit from that. Whereas Football Australia benefits from us developing players because they can make money from The Matildas.”
This is a disappointing statement from Peil and it went largely unchallenged. It is self-defeating, and shows that nobody at the APL is showing owners that money can be made for this game. There is no evidence so far for a vision for it, or yo have it as a top priority.
Transfer fees in the women’s game are booming worlwide, Australian players are still highly sought after by numerous leagues, and our domestic record has been broken multiple times in the last three years.
Ours is a competition that has produced three Ballon D’Or nominees, four UEFA Champions League winners, and in Melbourne City, a team of Asian Champions League finalists at the first time of asking. Australian footballers are among the best and most marketable in the world.
England’s professional women’s leagues and the NWSL in the United States both have independence from the men’s game, and in Germany the clubs have taken steps to follow suit. They see where the game is headed and want to keep up.
The APL has shown no indication that it plans to offer any sort of independent governance to the women’s competition. It is a strange stance. Could anybody really say with a straight face that Australian football is better run, or has had better ideas than England or the USA in how to operate a professional league?
On this issue, they seem to think they have the answers. Which is strange because they have implemented no real strategy beyond the big move of changing the name of the competition four years ago.
Ready For Takeoff presents a clear business case to invest in this league. Each club would require an extra $1 million per season. It sounds like a lot for a cash strapped league, but the PFA have shown that this can essentially pay for itself with rapid growth of the women’s game and subsequent commercial opportunities that would follow.
The A-League Women presents a unique opportunity that the APL simply cannot afford to miss. The PFA will stop short of saying this, but it is the best chance for a commercially successful, mainstream football competition in Australia.
The APL yearns to return to the days of regularly filled stadiums, clubs outgrowing their venues and mainstream media coverage (of the positive kind.)
The A-League Women can achieve this.
It is a long road back to mainstream cultural relevance for the men’s league. The media has been unfairly harsh, the support in stadiums have been over-policed and the casual fans have come, gone and do not look like coming back while the die-hards seem to have hit their peak.
The women’s league presents the APL with a chance for a fresh start. While partipation rates are no indicator of who can turn up to game (mostly because of time commitments) it does show that there is interest in women’s football.
The Matildas are described by PFA CEO Beau Busch as the economic engine of Australian football, and while national teams have always been more strongly supported than club sides even in sports like Cricket, the potential is there for the A-League Women to be something similar for the APL.
None of the pre-mentioned drawbacks apply to the A-League Women, and while the Australian sporting public can be fickle to a product deemed “less” than Europe, the A-League Women is already of very high playing standard now, and with proper and affordable investment it can be just as strong a league as anywhere else. It was once, less than a generation ago, but the decision makers in charge do not seem to see what the fans and players do. Nor do they appear to understand how the game is changing around the world.
A liveable minimum wage can make this a destination for some of the world’s top talents. Instantly, it can become the top league in Asia.
The issue that Australian fans demand the best when it comes to sporting leagues is solved by the A-League Women. The “Euro Snob” factor is largely removed. This is already a strong league, but it is moving in the opposite direction and with the right changes it can quickly become globally elite. Look how Mexico’s women’s league has steadily grown to become a preferred destination for some of Europe’s biggest names.
The lack of transfer fees is a largely self- inflicted issue by the clubs because too many players are on short-term contracts.
A player like Peta Trimis is sure to attract overseas attention, but a suitor will likely wait until her current deal is up. Melbourne City were rewarded by faith in Kaitlyn Torpey and have recently signed Danella Butrus to a three year contract. Do not be surprised to see them receive a fee for her before then.
A growing league that is a regional powerhouse can not only sell players, but sponsorship opportunities and broadcast rights.
The NWSL and FA WSL were free to watch online not too long ago, but have recently been repackaged and sold to subscription services. There are brands that would be eager to invest in a women’s league.
The APL is leaving money on the table, and claiming to have all the answers, but still ponders aloud why it’s struggling . Previous chairmain Danny Townsend claimed ambitions to making this a top league in the world and keeping it that way, but never took any tangible, measurable steps to make that happen, like the ones outlined by the PFA.
It was akin to claiming to planning on making a fortune on the stock market without ever buying shares in anything. You have to invest to see returns.
Australian domestic football has struggled with many issues in the past, but the A-League Women presents only opportunity. More than that, the players deserve it. This is a professional league, and while the men have always been paid well on the hope they will turn a profit, the women seem to need to prove they can be profitable first before any investment arrives.
This is the opposite of every business venture in existence, like a restaurant refusing to purchase any food to serve until the customers have come in and paid already. It is an absurd way of doing business and leaves the A-League Women underpaid and unable to grow, while being held to an impossible standard of financial prosperity that is never applied to the men.
The Dub is where the money is, there’s gold in these hills and so far, the APL has refused to look for it. Worryingly Stephen Conroy had an almost immediate response to the men’s PFA report, but was silent on the women’s.
The biggest question after reading the PFA’s proposal was why the APL did not do this level of market and economic research themselves since it is clearly in their interest.
This is the future, and recommendations in Ready For Takeoff can save the women’s league, but also the entire game in Australia and the APL as a business.
In the past five years, APL have splurged $140 million, signed ex-ex-ex premier league players, hired pop stars to write songs for a single season, changed the name from The W League and tried multiple broadcasters. They’ve also tried moving the Grand Final to Sydney.
None of these schemes have been the answer.
It is beyond time to try fully investing in the women and now is the time to fully support Ready For Takeoff.
Listen to PFA CEO Beau Busch’s further explanation on The Far Post podcast here
Read the 2024/25 A-League Women players report here.
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