Carlton will be without star midfielder Chloe Dalton for the 2021 AFLW season after the 27-year-old stepped away from the game to pursue Olympic gold, becoming the latest duel-sport athlete to leave the AFLW seeking greener pastures or greater opportunities elsewhere.
It is becoming a well-worn path trodden by these cross-coders – as they have been somewhat affectionately named – who retire from or step back from the AFLW to pursue another sport.
The GWS Giants’ Ellie Brush, who is named in Sydney FC’s 2020-21 W-League squad, has decided to focus on reaching Tokyo with the Matildas and has recently retired from the AFLW. Prior to the 2020 season, the Western Bulldogs Aisling Utri stepped away from the game to focus on her hockey career. Utri captained the Australian Under-21 hockey team and is one of the country’s most talented players. Adelaide’s Maisie Nankivell also walked away from the game late last year to pursue a career in Super Netball with the Adelaide Thunderbirds.
It is difficult to begrudge these women’s decisions. As it stands, the competition is a semi-professional, part-time gig with limited remuneration and a truncated season. With Olympic gold on the table, choosing rugby or football above the AFLW is hardly surprising. Add to that the possibility of more lucrative salaries and sponsorships and the opportunity to be a full-time athlete and there is no surprise at all.
Surprise, however, can be found in the number of young, and obviously talented, women walking away from the game. The AFLW sign and trade period wrapped up last week, and along with plenty of trades and re-signings there were several retirements. Some retirements were expected, but others raised eyebrows and pointed, yet again, to how the nature of the competition may be inadvertently stifling its development.
Arianne Clarke, the former captain of the Queensland Under-18 team, was released from the second year of her contract by the Brisbane Lions. The 21-year-old is reportedly looking for a better work-life balance. She was joined by St Kilda’s Courteney Munn, also 21. If that names sounds familiar, it might be because when Munn debuted for North Melbourne in 2019, she kicked four goals and received a Rising Star nomination for her efforts. At the Saints, Munn made the top 10 of the club’s best and fairest count in their inaugural AFLW season.
In 2019, 19-year-old Maggie Gorham won the Bainrot medal, AFL Canberra’s best and fairest award. The forward was drafted by the Giants soon after but has elected to retire from the game after one season. It is a similar story for Ella Wood, also 19. Selected by Richmond in the 2019 draft, Wood has cited a desire to spend more time with family as her reason for retiring after one season with the Tigers. Add to that list, Collingwood’s Kaila Bentvelzen and Taylor Mesiti who was drafted by North Melbourne in 2018, both only 22.
Earlier this month, Brush and Gorham’s former teammate Rebecca Beeson wrote about the precarity of playing in the AFLW. “What scares me the most is the possibility that I’ll be done with football in my 30s with only a couple of dollars to my name and no proper career path to step into,” Beeson wrote.
It is a sentiment that must be felt throughout the playing ranks and undoubtedly a factor in players moving between clubs, looking for greater opportunity. But research has found AFLW players often avoided being critical of the challenges they faced or the issues inherent in the league’s structure.
“When players spoke out, it was reframed positively as if they may be punished for their comments,” said Dr Adele Pavlidis, an ARC fellow at the Griffith Centre for Social Cultural Research. “This is part of the tension between the AFL permitting women to play and the worth of these women to the industry.”
The research revealed that players “rationalised their low pay and work conditions as necessary ‘sacrifice’ to create a sustainable, profit-generating competition”.
“They may have made it, but it is on them to make the competition a success or it could all be taken away for future generations. That’s a big responsibility to put on women who are often very young.”
There is an expectation that these women will dedicate their lives to the competition, sacrificing careers, money and family to play. But how long can the league expect that without compensating these women accordingly? How long can you trade on the goodwill of these pioneers, especially when Olympic gold beckons? Or even just a job that provides financial stability.
The AFL has created the parameters of the AFLW – part-time, semi-professional, shortened season and capped salaries – and in doing so they have fashioned an environment where those same parameters may be stifling the development of the competition. The AFL may come to regret these choices. But for some players, it may be too little too late.
