Pay disparity between female and male players in football netball clubs in the region has been a strong theme at a forum hosted by La Trobe University.
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The third annual Women in Leadership forum featured a panel of Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins, AFL North East Border’s John O’Donohue and Dr Carol McKinstry – Collingwood AFLW player Iilish Ross was absent.
Sixty questions were put forward online by the audience, including “$3.7 million is spent on player payments for three local male footy leagues while netballers play for free – what is the justification for such disparity?”
Mr O’Donohue agreed it was “unfair” and said payments “had gotten out of control”.
“One of the challenges footy has got is bringing back the payment scale to a reasonable level,” he said.
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“There’s been discussion about implementing payments for women for netball and it’s a fair and reasonable argument.”
Ms Jenkins said pay was “a huge issue” and also noted disparity in funding for women’s sport.
“That boys play on the main pitch and girls play on the other one without lights and change-rooms is still a current story,” she said.
“Only 9 per cent of corporate sponsorship dollars and 10 per cent of media coverage goes to women’s sport.”
Ms Jenkins said change was happening and referenced her three-year stint on the board of Carlton FC.
“We had the lowest number of women members of any club … they now have a sports program teaching children about equal respect and the Carlton Respect Round,” she said.
La Trobe’s Carol McKinstry, the first ever female board chair for the Bendigo Football Netball League, also spoke of growth.
“The chair was Damian Drum when I joined …. he asked what I would be doing, as there was already a woman doing the netball,” she said.
“I had to establish my credibility … there often hasn’t been the critical mass for women; they’ve had to do it by themselves without a lot of support, and that’s changing now,” she said.
Changes at a local level were also discussed, and Mr O’Donohue said a female perspective brought strength to club administration.
“In 2016 three out of six clubs had female presidents,” he said.
“We’ve gone from 36 registered (female) players four years ago when AFLW wasn’t even on the horizon, to 370 players this year.
“It’s a really fast-growing segment of our game.”
The forum was attended by about 150 people, whose tickets got to a bursary for Albury-Wodonga female La Trobe students.
