Football Australia will launch the first-ever Women's Australia Cup next year to capitalise on the expected boom in participation following the 2023 Women's World Cup, adding an extra layer of competition to the domestic game for women and girls.
The nationwide knockout tournament, which will follow the men's format in being open to clubs from the community level all the way to the elite A-League Women, will be the first of its kind for any code played by women in Australia.
The Women's Australia Cup will also act as a second qualification pathway for the incoming AFC Women's Asian Champions League.
A version of the continental competition was piloted in 2019 and involved the four most recent league premiers of Australia (Melbourne Victory), China (Jiangsu Suning), Japan (Nippon TV Beleza), and South Korea (Incheon Hyundai Steel Red Angels). It was won by the Japanese side before being shelved due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After the success of a similar pilot in 2021 that involved teams from western Asia, and an inter-regional round-robin tournament that took place last year, the AFC will now expand the format to include separate groups, semi-finals, and a final starting in 2024.
The winner of the Women's Australia Cup could potentially automatically qualify for the following Women's Champions League alongside the premiers of the A-League Women, opening the door for women's clubs below the professional level to access Asian football more broadly for the first time.
"The next evolution of women's club football is an Australia Cup for women," Football Australia CEO James Johnson said.
"I think a cup running alongside the A-League Women's is something that we need to do, and we need to do quite quickly.
"I would like to have A-League clubs to be able to access [the Women's Champions League] through the A-League, but also clubs outside of the A-League to be able to access it through a cup competition. So that's something that's on our agenda in the next couple of years."
The proposed Women's Australia Cup will run in parallel with the men's Australia Cup, formerly known as the FFA Cup, which began in 2014 after several stop-start iterations over the decades.
Qualification for the men's Australia Cup usually begins in March, with all participating community clubs taking part in one-off knockout games alongside their regular-season matches.
After seven rounds, A-League clubs then join at the round of 32, and are drawn alongside the 22 clubs that have progressed from the lower tiers.
On the men's side, the 2022 edition saw more than 700 clubs from every state and territory participate, culminating in a final between A-League newcomers Macarthur FC and Sydney United 58 last October.
It was the first time in the cup's history that a second-division team qualified for the final, which Macarthur ended up winning 2-0, but not before the game was shrouded in controversy due to inappropriate behaviour from Sydney United supporters.
The format of a Women's Australia Cup will likely be determined by the number of clubs that express interest, with fewer rounds potentially required as a result.
Further, given the number of players who participate in both the A-League Women and the NPL over a full calendar year, it is not yet clear how players will be distributed, nor whether lower-tier clubs will be encouraged to accelerate the development of reserves teams to step up into senior sides in the absence of ALW-contracted players.
However, with the participation and funding boom expected in the wake of the 2023 Women's World Cup, FA is confident the competition will be embraced by clubs across the country, many of which already participate in their own state-based knockout competitions, such as Victoria's Nike FC Cup and New South Wales' new Sapphire Cup, which begins this year.
"Equality and inclusion are key pillars of Football NSW's strategic plan, and the introduction of the Sapphire Cup ensures our continued journey towards gender parity," Football NSW CEO John Tsatsimas said.
"We hope a successful women's knockout competition in NSW will help provide a catalyst to the development of a national women's Cup competition."
