August start for AFLW season looking likely

AFL head of football operations Brad Scott says the league is pushing ahead with an August start date for the upcoming AFLW season.

Frustrations are mounting within AFLW clubs given the lack of clarity around a set start date, as well as the length of the season and formality of lists, given the addition of four expansion sides.

The sixth season of the women’s comp only concluded in April, with the league needing to sort out a new collective bargaining agreement on top of implementing Essendon, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide and Sydney from scratch.

“Our clear position is that we are preparing for an August start for season seven of AFLW,” Scott told Sportsday.

“I think it is reasonable for all AFLW players and clubs to expect that that’ll be the starting position for the season.

“Clearly the CBA has got to be worked through in terms of number of games and all those sorts of things, but we’re pressing ahead.

“In Football Operations we’re preparing for an August start, and we’ve communicated that to clubs.”

Melbourne captain Daisy Pearce said last week some of the issues holding up the new CBA, revealing the league wants the season length to remain at 10 games for the next three years, despite expanding to 18 teams.

“At the moment it’s been proposed that it would be a 10-week season over the next three years with no growth,” said on SEN’s Whateley.

“10 weeks felt okay for the 14 teams last year, it felt like you got a fair and reasonable outcome.

“With the 18 teams next season, from a legitimacy of the competition point of view, but also a player development point of view, you just need to be able to play more football, particularly if you’re not playing in the senior side, the competition in its timeframe now won’t align to many of the state competitions around the country.

“So you’ll just not be playing. Again, for the product we need more games and also for your development as an athlete you need to be able to play.

“We want 12 [games] in the next season and then 14 in the season after that. I think most players would be accepting given the short turnaround that we don’t have a lot of time to change things on a broad scale this year.

“If it was 10 and then we saw significant growth beyond that, I think most players would be satisfied by that.

“I think it’s the fact that there’s no growth in the length of the season, that’s an issue.”

– BY NIC NEGREPONTIS/ SEN