No overnight success: The slow transformation of women’s football in Australia

The Adelaide Jaguars are one of South Australia’s biggest female-only soccer clubs and have recently taken on a record high in player registrations following the inspiring Matildas World Cup campaign in 2023.

Despite being one of the biggest clubs in the SA women’s soccer space, the club are yet to find a permanent home. Access to shared council-leased pitches for training and games is dependent on season to season permits, and use of any available space is negotiated with multiple sports each year.

No storage space forces coaches to keep most of the equipment in their own cars for the season, and the absence of a function room makes it difficult for the community to meet, train volunteers, provide athlete education and so much more.

The Jaguars are one of many such stories across the country who require more funding just for basic necessities, while they also work to support a participation surge that they hope to take advantage of.

In a chat with SoccerScene, Club chairperson Bronny Brooks spoke about the incredible growth of the club, how the current grant system can improve for grassroots clubs and the importance of increased funding for women’s soccer following this surge in popularity.

Can you explain just how much the club has grown recently, particularly after the 2023 Women’s World Cup?

Bronny Brooks: Our growth actually started prior to the World Cup. Over the past five years we have had a significant increase in all age groups (MiniRoos, Juniors and Senior community) and so the sport itself was on an upswing.

About four years ago we had about 70 players, this year we registered 320 and next year we will probably top over 350 registered players. The World Cup itself probably had an impact of around 30% and I would say we’ve gained between 100 and 120 players at the club for the 2024 season, following the World Cup.

The most disappointing thing is that we probably turned away almost 100 players as we lacked the capacity to support the extra players. Limited resources including pitch space, coaches, lighting and many other challenges common in the football community make it difficult to support the growth. We unfortunately couldn’t find a place for everyone and so yes, we increased, but we could’ve probably been a little bit bigger if we had those resources available to us.

The age groups we’ve probably seen the most growth in includes our Community Women’s program. Our women who are 25-30+ , either returning to football or new to football, just want to be a part of it socially and for fitness and enjoy connecting through a team sport. Then of course our little ones, our u7’s for example we had 32 of them join this year which is like a whole class full of u7’s!!

Community women and MiniRoos have been our biggest growth spots whilst juniors are fairly stable mostly because they were already involved in the sport.

Certainly, the support and the interest around those groups along with the spectatorship has all grown as well.

The ABC article suggested that within 12 months, the club would find a permanent home to help store the equipment and the new players. Is there any update on that situation?

Bronny Brooks: The biggest challenge for us is land and land consent. Our club is based in the western suburbs of Adelaide which is built out between the city and the sea, and there’s not a lot of land space available. We have had tremendous support from all levels of government around our community. They love what we do, they love the impact that we make but it’s been really tricky to find space for us to build a home.

We currently operate out of an 8m by 2m converted council coffee room and we have 21 teams so most of our equipment is stored in people’s cars. The club’s playing kit actually travelled in the back of my car for a whole season and coaches have all the balls and cones in their cars, so we’re pretty desperate in terms of even just storage, let alone a new home to bring the community together and train those volunteers.

The government is aware of our challenges. We’ve had a local primary school approach us and offer space which would be a fantastic solution and outside of school hours –  but then the question becomes who would help with funding as it is not council land.

The popularity of the ABC article helped with discussing a solution. I have for the first time ever had local, state and federal government all talking in the same room which has been great, but no one has come up with an actual solution yet.

One of the biggest issues for us as a female sport, and other female sports would experience similar, is that in the years when those land parcels were handed out to footy and cricket clubs, the sports were male-dominated and female clubs didn’t really exist. As a female-only club with a 15 year history, we weren’t around when they were handing out those land parcels and because of that, we need to play catch up somewhere along the line. We need to make it happen so there is some equity in the access to land that female sports have.

With all that in mind, unfortunately, finding a home within 12 months is probably a little bit idealistic at the moment.

South Australian Government had the “Power of Her” grant program and it seems extremely competitive to earn a grant. What’s your opinion on how they could make that system easier for grassroots clubs?

Bronny Brooks: It’s a very interesting topic. The ‘Power of Her’ is a fantastic initiative because we need to support clubs that are backing women and trying to provide equity to these grassroots clubs.

It’s not only the opportunity to apply that’s important, but also how does the government follow up on the grants? What’s the accountability to make sure that the people receiving the grants are doing the right thing? Historically, what has happened is there are clubs that have only one or two girls’ teams but are majority boys’ teams, and they apply for funding to support their female teams. But the money never actually goes into the women’s game. The funding continues to be immersed into the club as a whole or for equipment that is used by the boys’ teams. We have even known clubs to receive grant money for new female facilities, and then just a few years later they don’t even have a women’s program.

There is money available and there are certainly criteria that we all have to meet but it’s also about meeting those criteria in three years or five years’ time. The question becomes what actually happens to that money?

The ‘Power of Her’ offered $10 million for soccer clubs and $8 million for other sports in the state. With current costs, our club would need $10 million just to build a facility of our own, and lots of other clubs need infrastructure as well, so there isn’t really enough money to go around. Our club is never going to receive the whole amount, understandably, but the amounts available and the structure of the grant limit what you can do to improve the club. We were successful in receiving grant funds for programming and equipment, which is fantastic, but we missed out on finding a solution to a much bigger challenge – that is, securing a venue for a sustainable future.

Do you believe women’s soccer is getting neglected for other sports by the government and should the revenue made by the Matildas be shared around fairer?

Broony Brooks: Yep, Jags is representative of the grassroots community and I do think there needs to be more support for that level of our sport. It’s so important to build from the bottom up.

Different sporting codes are structured differently, and I don’t have accurate knowledge around how it is all structured through Football Australia or Football SA, but I do know that our fees are really high compared to many sports. We have to pay a lot upfront for our participants, and to cover costs, and there should be more funding support for community football.

You look at our football fees compared to Aussie Rules footy fees. AFL is a bottom up type of organisation and they have funding available for the lowest level. Football in Australia is top down funding – fees in general are just way too high and it makes it quite difficult for players to participate. There are some clubs that charge $1,500+ a season and it’s a huge amount of money for a family. We’re very careful as a community to make sure we never turn away anyone – if they need financial support, we will find a way for them to play.

However, there is only so much capacity for a club to do that. We do all the right things as a club, we work hard to secure sponsorship and fundraise, but there has to be a way where those players and clubs are supported financially. There are so many benefits to playing community sport – the social, mental and physical health impact is massive. What sport does long term for our community is so important, so there’s a health investment the government should consider as well.

I think there should be ways of looking at funding from a long-term perspective, rather than immediate, and then drawing into those funds for having resources available for community clubs.