Hawthorn AFL club president Jeff Kennett wants his team to be the first to field a woman in its senior side. Mr Kennett says women have a future at the elite level in Australian football.
“I have become increasingly impressed with how many members of the female gender or sex play football and pursue physical activities and are remarkably fit,” he told the Herald Sun newspaper.
“And just as we have seen women now increasingly participating in not only the defence forces but the emergency services, one can really ask the question: `Will a woman one day, based on merit, seek to play AFL football?’.
“And I don’t think that’s a situation that you can rule out for all of time. If that’s the case, I’d love that person to play at Hawthorn.”
But VFL legends Ron Barassi and Tom Hafey were not so sure.
“I don’t think I’d like to see the female form be as forbidding as a man,” Barassi said.
Hafey said: “I couldn’t imagine it happening for a long, long, long, long time.”
Under AFL rules, girls and boys cannot play football together after the age of 14.
M J
Guest
As a women myself, and a fan of AFL, i can see where Jeff Kennett is coming from. But i think instead of involving women in the afl, they should create a women's AFL where only women can play. If that happened it should get as much publicity as the AFL does
onside
Guest
Kennett will next suggest we give women the right to vote. Look, they still dance backwards.
JP
Guest
Jeff Kennett is just stating what is common knowledge to the rest of the sporting codes in Australia, the AFL is a girls game and they currently have a number of females (impersonating males) playing the game ....... Or maybe he was contemplating next years draft picks .......
Mattay
Guest
Someone should have told that to Nick Maxwell and the bloke who is Rebecca WIlson's brother on Sunrise this morning. Unbelievably they fully endorsed it. I think even Maxwell said it was "inevitable".
The facts
Guest
Yelena Isinbaeva on a half-forward flank? She'd go alright wouldn't she?
Michael C
Roar Guru
Yes, yes, yes...... just don't let my wife see this!!! ;-)
Michael C
Roar Guru
ON SEN they were trying to work out if this was just Kennett having a sly dig at the feminising of the game itself, he fully defended his position by suggesting that 40 odd years ago when he was in the army, if people had suggested to him then that women would be on the front line, or be flying space vehicles etc etc - that he and many at the time would've said they were crazy. So, perhaps he's got a point -- just what might be possible in 20 years time..........but.........nah..........timing is everything, he was having a sly dig at the AFL.
gazz
Roar Pro
Wasnt Jeff Kennett 'not going to be seen or heard' when he became the Hawthorn president?
Mattay
Guest
Maybe we should follow NFL's lead and create a Lingerie Bowl type competition. We can call it LFL.
Redb
Roar Guru
Your probably right about that it is a sly dig at Buddy getting two weeks. Get over it Hawks you bunch of whingers. It's why God invented the final 8 so that Hawthorn could watch the finals from the sidelines in 2009. (I'll cop it for that) Redb
Tiger Town
Guest
AFL is no longer a contact sport. That is Kennett's cryptic point.
Redb
Roar Guru
Tifosi, yeah the first thing that popped into my head was that Hawthorn already have a bunch of girls playing for them, maybe the Bombers should check under Campbell Brown' skirt next time? :-) If sports like soccer, tennis, golf, basketball, basicially most sports in the world segregate men and women why in earth would Jeff think it would work in AFL footy. There is a growing womens footy comp these days, as the president of the Victorian Womens football League said this morning on SEN, what about Hawthorn creates a female team to play other female teams as curtain raisers to the AFL. Surely a better idea. Redb
Robbos
Guest
There is a difference. I have too much respect for women to call AFL a women's sport. The more women in sport the better.
Robbo
Guest
I guess this validates my view that AFL is a female sport...
Tifosi
Guest
Read this article on the Herald Sun webpage, the comments generally suggested that the Hawks already had a bunch of girls playing for them. Ouch. But seriously Jeff Kennett is a dodo. Females playing against females maybe fine. But no way in a contact sport could this possibly happen.