How dare they deny us a licence to field a team in a competition I’m not interested in!
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Michaela Long only wants to play for us. That’s one hell of a wait for her until we get our own team.
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The AFL will poach players from every sport they can. Make our compition great, join us.
I would have thought it would be excellent management to refrain from putting in a bid until we were in a better position to make a go of it. Remember what happened last time when our governance was deemed to be poor?
Can’t win with the AFL. Do they give any feedback as to why we were unsuccessful?
The choice of Nth Melbourne and Gold Coast is an interesting one. They are both going to be an added drain on the AFL coffers. The support for their men’s teams is ■■■■ poor. EVen when Nth has had relative success, their membership numbers and finances don’t reflect that. How are the AFL proposing to make the women’s teams any more viable? Or will they too be subsidised ad infinitum?
Essendon really could not have predicted that the AFL would run with a “first in” business strategy.
It would have to be one of the more farked up and lazy business strategies going around.
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Fark the AFL just apply for an A-League license.
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Essendon has released an angry statement - ahhhh, takes me back to the good ol’ days.
First and foremost, the Essendon Football Club would like to congratulate Geelong, North Melbourne, St Kilda, West Coast, Gold Coast and Richmond on being granted AFLW licences for the 2019 and 2020 seasons.
The successful Clubs have a wonderful opportunity to grow the game of women’s football on a national level, and continue the positive momentum generated in the inaugural AFLW season.
However, the Club is extremely disappointed in the AFL’s decision not to award the Club an AFLW licence for the 2019 or 2020 seasons.
We are also frustrated there is no clear line of sight on when the AFL will decide to expand the women’s competition beyond 2020.
The Club believes it presented a compelling case focusing on growing women’s football in two important geographic regions of Australia, and outlined the important social and community outcomes which could be achieved as a flow on effect of being granted an AFLW licence.
The Club was also confident of delivering an economically sound and self-sufficient women’s football program from year one.
This decision has missed a wonderful opportunity to fast track the development of the rich talent pools of the remote communities of the Tiwi Islands and West Arnhem Land, and Australia’s largest population growth corridor, North West Melbourne.
We will continue to provide women from the remote communities of the Tiwi Islands, West Arnhem Land and North West Melbourne with a pathway to achieve their dreams of playing AFLW, and remain committed to entering a team in the VFLW competition as early as next season.
Today’s decision will not impact our passion to grow, develop and invest in aspiring young female footballers, or more broadly the game of women’s football.
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I wonder if the idea is to block bigger clubs from aflw (now that it’s been proven to be reasonably popular) in the hope that a generation of girls will choose to support sides WITH an aflw side. Socialisation of the supporter base, if you like. Blocking the swans while having a GWS aflw side in the hope that a boost in GWS supporter numbers will flow to the afl side too.
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That’s a huge handicap to put on the sport.
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No wouldn’t be that… Would be more about the fact that they love Geelong and saw North were would enter the Tasmania market in the joint partnership.
I reckon its more ‘Get Farked Essendon’. I am seriously surprised Hawthorn got snubbed to be honest alongside us.
Hawk supporters are also peeved (like us) on Big Footy that GC got a license over us.
I just hope they don’t expect us to be helping them financially and with talent. I almost choked when Gil said he would work with us and Hawthorn to improve our chances of getting an AFLW license in the future (they just cannot promise when that will be). I would be telling Gil and co to get farked!
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I wonder how Hawthorn would feel about backing the VFL women’s comp and putting the funds into it to try and make it a better comp than AFLW. Just play the games as curtain raisers.
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According to the article today, Norf entered the partnership with tassie at the suggestion of the afl. Hawthorn would have been the more obvious tassie partner given their long-running launceston deal, but I reckon the afl wanted norf to get the gig instead so told afl tas who to partner with.
I’m sure there was a ‘get farked essendon’ factor at work too, but I still reckon supporter base equalisation was a part of it. Why two Qld sides but only one nsw side otherwise? It’d be nuts - unless the plan was to systematically favour the clubs with lower supporter bases.
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Collingwood has a team so it can’t all be about supporter equalisation
Collingwood got a team in the first iteration of the league when nobody knew if anyone would watch or be interested. Last season was, I think, a bigger success than anyone anticipated & so the afl are NOW starting to look at it as a possible equalisation method.
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I wonder how compensation and insurance wpuld work with our VFLW players that are drafted as these games go over Summer so the players will be expected to return for the VFLW season.
I would be expecting their contracts will state
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any season ending injury to be covered the AFLW team insurance and wages for the year to be voided or paid by the AFLW team.
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Any long term injury that impacts the VFLW season to be deducted from year earnings not paid for the weeks you cant play)
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Funny you should say that Humble. I’ve been contemplating why our bid would have been unsuccessful, given the benefits outlined by the club in the above statement, and came to the same conclusion myself. Perhaps they are assuming these less popular clubs will gain supporters from the non participating bigger clubs, especially if the father/daughter players can’t wait for their ‘own’ team to get a license.
Anyway, very disappointing for the indigenous communities up north not to get an opportunity through EssendonW. I imagine it would provide a great focus for the young female footballers from those areas. For their sakes, I hope another team provides that opportunity for them, although it just wouldn’t feel the same to me.
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Well fark them I say. Won’t be watching.
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My initial position, and i haven’t changed from this, is that the women’s league should have had their own teams and own identities separate to the men’s teams. It would have avoided this situation and it could have helped correct the balance between between Victoria and the other states. Tassie could have had a team. And the NT.
But no, the afl took a lazy approach and in their haste to get a competition up and running pushed the duty of building teams onto the existing clubs. And they picked clubs they wanted to funnel funds into because of their weak financial position and the women’s team was a perfect guise for that. And Collingwood got a team because eddie is an annoying noisy twat.
I’m glad the women have a national competition and are getting due recognition but i won’t give a damn about this league until it has an essendon team and when it stops looking like a cheap afl construct tacked onto the start of the year before the men’s game starts.
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Which makes it more bizarre that Essendon got snubbed as we have the funds compared to GC. The joint partnership with Tasmania reaks of dosgy dealings as the AFL pushed north into it to get tjem across the line. Reckon they wpuld have wanted to stay at Arden St for their games and not travel to the apple Island.
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I did see it, and yes it was exceptional.
I understand the logic of giving North and Geelong licenses for next season, but I am astonished that We didn’t get a licence for 2019.
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