AFL to invest $5 million to back grassroots participation for girls and women

The AFL Commission has approved an investment of more than $5 million to fund phase one of the game’s 2022 Women and Girls Action Plan, designed to drive participation and representation for women and girls across all aspects of community football from playing to coaching, umpiring and administering.

The action plan has been developed to help achieve the aspirations in participation outlined in the Women’s Football Vision, which was released late in 2021 and has a stated objective that the game will strive for equal participation and representation by the end of this decade.

The $5 million upfront commitment for the next three years comes in addition to the AFL’s $8 million extra investment into community football announced in December last year, to help rebuild the grassroots game after two years of COVID disruptions.

The first phase of the Women and Girls Action Plan is focused on grassroots, community football, and includes adding (or expanding) programs to attract and retain girls and women in Auskick, as well as participation in school, community clubs, leadership, coaching and umpiring.

Currently, around 600,000 girls and women participate in community AFL across the country.

Stating that the action plan represents a “big step forward” in the development of the women’s game, AFL General Manager Women’s Football, Nicole Livingstone advised “the Women’s Football Vision set out to make our elite level players the best paid female athletes in domestic sport by end of the decade and as part of that we have increased pay by 94% for the upcoming AFLW Season Seven, which starts in August and will involve all 18 AFL clubs for the first time

“From a community football perspective, we now have 600,000 women and girls participating in our game and it is important we continue to strengthen participation from NAB AFL Auskick to junior and senior community football in environments that are equally safe and inclusive at all levels.

“This is why we have committed to these actions, to ensure that what we are aspiring to will become reality. We want to drive the growth of female football across the board with players, coaches, umpires and administrators.”

In late 2021, the AFL launched its Women’s Football Vision for 2021-2030, outlining its commitment to the game for women and girls across all levels.

Targets in the plan include:

• Deliver girls-only offerings at every Auskick centre

• Deliver all-girls competitions from Under-9’s upwards in every region

• A 50/50 gender split of all AFL-run school programs

• Develop 20 talent-identified community coaches through the ‘She Can Coach’ program

• Upskill 600 community coaches

• Target 3000 new female coaches

• Develop 40 emerging talented umpires annually

• Target nearly 1800 new female community umpires

• Deliver 100 existing oval enhancement and/or lighting projects to provide more facilities for women and girls

• Deliver 200 targeted gender-neutral player and umpire amenity improvement projects

• Establish a new grants program to increase access to education and resources and support local women to set up new competitions, clubs and teams

• Increase gender balanced leadership at the community club level

• Deliver tailored transition and entry-point programs for coaching and umpiring

• Ensure specific women and girls targets are embedded in all workplans and staff goals for AFL employees

Last month, the AFL announced players in the AFLW will receive significant pay rise, with a new collective bargaining agreement that will see their salaries increase by 94%. The new pay deal will ensure the average player salary nearly doubles, with the best paid players in the competition receiving $71,935, up from $37,155.