More than $5 million will be put into grassroots and community female football to help accelerate the progress and create change.
The AFL Commission announced on Sunday they would commit $5 million to be spent over three years, to fund phase one of the 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.
This stage includes adding or expanding programs to attract, retain and encourage women and girls across every aspect of community football from NAB AFL Auskick, schools, community club participation, leadership, coaching and umpiring.
Key aims in this stage of the plan include delivering girls-only offerings at every Auskick Centre and delivering all-girls competitions from under-9s and a 50-50 gender split in all school programs and competitions.
There will also be better opportunities for female coaches and increase the number of women coaching from eight per cent to 18 per cent, while a focus on better facilities, more grants, more females in leadership roles at club and league level are also part of the plan.
AFL women’s football general manager Nicole Livingstone said this was another step forward for developing the game for females at all levels.
“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,” she said.
“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.”
AFL executive general manager Rob Auld said it is a priority for the AFL to continue to create and support more opportunities for women and girls in every part of our game and at all levels, to ensure everyone has a positive experience in the sport.
“These actions set out what we are committed to delivering from a participation perspective, to support the AFL’s aspiration of driving equal participation and representation across all levels of community football by 2030,” he said.
“We need to provide the best possible environments for women and girls in order to accelerate growth across umpiring, coaching, administering and playing.
“When we’ve run programs and invested in the game for women and girls, we’ve seen tangible results with increases in participation. The AFL offered a grant funding program in Victoria to drive more women and girls teams that resulted in three new competitions, 11 new clubs and more than 900 new women and girls playing our game.
“We have also seen the benefit of identifying and investing in women who are talented coaches and umpires, and we will continue to expand our pathways and opportunities to fulfil their potential.”
