The excitement around Tony Gustavsson’s appointment is more than just about winning the 2023 World Cup.
The FFA have made it clear they want a coach who will rebuild our women’s football infrastructure. This means the senior Matildas but also the youth players coming through. However, an important point that shouldn’t be missed is the need to develop our next generation of coaches.
The pathway for coaches in Australia is poor. Many juggle other jobs while trying to learn a specialised craft. It is an area that should be of grave concern to the FFA, who need to nurture the talent available or run the risk of losing coaches well before they have a chance to succeed.
The funding and money generated for 2023 needs to be invested in a proper coaching pathway. After all, the better coaches we have, the better players we will develop.
The key area is our youth and development leagues. Australia hasn’t qualified for the last seven Women’s Youth World Cups and the NPLW system is struggling at times to produce footballers who can compete in the W-League with international stars. This is partly due to the lack of development in our coaching stocks.
The W-League has a number of talented up-and-coming coaches. However they are paid peanuts and expected to live off that for six months. The average coach would get $25-35,000 whereas an assistant would get around $10,000. That is hardly enough to pay the bills.
The median salary in Australia is $48,000 and the poverty line sits at $22,000 for a single adult and $47,000 for the average family, according to The Smith Family.
During a W-League season, coaching staff work five or six days on average for a total of 25 to 30 hours, which doesn’t include interstate trips. This leaves precious little time to juggle another job that can help make ends meet.
So essentially W-League assistant coaches, who are the next generation coming through, don’t even scrape together enough to meet the poverty line. A senior coach with all that responsibility isn’t that much better off. This is a ridiculous and unacceptable scenario that shouldn’t happen in 2020.
A proper pathway includes remunerating coaches a fair wage so they can focus on developing their capabilities and experience without the pressure of having to find employment elsewhere.
(Tony Feder/Getty Images)
The benefit of having the 2023 World Cup is the extra money that inevitably comes into the game from FIFA, the government and sponsors. FIFA has $1 billion to invest in the women’s game, and logically a big chunk of that should go to the countries hosting the next World Cup.
The federal government has lots of money to spend on women’s sport. Football should put its hand out for its fair share.
While player remuneration at the international and W-League level is important, so is the pay given to the people who work just as hard: the support staff. Much of the money coming in also needs to be set aside for coaches.
There has been a big push for more female coaches to come into the system. But a number simply cannot afford to stay too long in the game. Their livelihoods and family needs won’t allow it. Many are forced out after a few years. That is hardly enough time to build their capability and reach their potential.
There are some great young female coaches coming through the system. Leah Blayney is touted by many as a future Matildas coach. Catherine Cannuli, Jessine Bonzas and Ashley Wilson are all highly regarded in the W-League. Former W-League coach Belinda Wilson just won a men’s NPL title in northern Queensland. There are a number of others coming through, including many in the NPLW.
While the next three years is about winning the 2023 World Cup, it has to also be about building a professional and fully functional system that invests in everyone from players, coaches, medical staff and administrators. We need every part of the pyramid to work properly and efficiently.
There has been much talk of leaving a legacy after 2023. That should include ensuring people involved in women’s football don’t have to live in poverty.
Kate
Guest
It’s becoming harder and harder to motivate women’s and girls to play football now. Especially with some clubs not even having anyone to stand up for them and be their voice as a women’s coordinator. My local club had a women’s and girls coordinator this season however I understand that this will no longer be the case going forward. Very disappointing both as a women’s player and also as a junior girls coach.
Martyn50
Roar Rookie
What the heck is WALF?
NoMates
Guest
When the W-League starts to bring in the view ship and dollars that the WALF do then why complain? Women's coaching is nothing more then a babysitting gig on the weekends.
stu
Guest
Before you know it we will need a certificate to walk out the front door. Of course, generating a certificate generates income....perhaps the current pandemic will re-set our priorities.
jbinnie
Guest
Waz - No worries, you obviously got my message, but I could have gone much further for I omitted to mention Busby and Ferguson at United, Busby took over in 1945, just de-mobbed from the army at the end of ww11, (got himself half a stadium ruined (by bombs) and laid the plans for the mega club we have today, aided and abetted of course by Fergie, who had "served his time" as a toolmaker in the Clyde shipyards before venturing into full time football. I also could have mentioned Ron Saunders who built a side at a lesser identity, Aston Villa, who also won a European Cup. That same prize was dominated for years by a team from across the channel, Ajax, managed by two giants in the coaching game, Michels and Cruyff, both having advanced straight from the playing role into the management role. Pieces of paper did not make these men good coaches, it was their experience over the years that gave them the insights into how to buiid and create good football teams. cheers jb.
Waz
Roar Rookie
Don’t get me started on that one jb. We now have a system where key positions are reserved for C-Licenced coaches (or above) and, if you dont have the piece of paper, you can’t progress. Numerous clubs/TD’s have lost the ability to assess how good/bad a coach is - instead they defer to a licensing system.
jbinnie
Guest
Waz - Have you ever asked yourself what sort of qualifications the following men had to gain before they procured their jobs. Shankly, Paisley (Liverpool), Stein (Celtic), Nicholson (Spurs), Ramsey (Ipswich and England), Clough (Notts Forest), all top performing clubs. I won't include successful European coaches for obvious reasons. Were they A,B, or C. levels.???? Makes one wonder does it not? jb.
stu
Guest
Peter....don't quite understand the disbelief. I would think anyone involved in any sport as an employee would be paid relative to the money generated in the business. I think the approach to these articles is worth re-considering. Either accept where the sport stands as a revenue generating business and suggest initiatives to do better, or assign the sport in full to government funding.....which would also be funded relative to the interest in the game. Too much outrage.
stu
Guest
Kate....with the W-League televised and in turn being advertised to the sporting public of Australia it is logical to assume what is being aired is the value proposition. Therefore why is the Australian public not recognising the 'value' being presented? Would you argue against people buying what they want?
Waz
Roar Rookie
It’s not just womens coaches. This is how it works trying to get a C-Licence: Your local football association advertises courses. They have fixed dates and fixed prices. You sign up and pay well over a thousand dollars. But with no certainty of getting a place. If you don’t get a place, you get your money back …. eventually. Wait 6 more mths. Rinse n Repeat. B and then A Licences are similar.
Waz
Roar Rookie
She resigned to concentrate on assisting the Matilda’s
Kate
Guest
Women’s football is undervalued everywhere. It’s time FFA step in and put a light and importance on the women’s game and to back it up with action!
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
thanks Luke. Do you know why she was replaced by Jake Goodship?
Para+Ten ISUZU Subway support Australian Football
Roar Rookie
Australian Football needs to start ramping up. The Women's World Cup is the spring board to revitalize the flagging interest in Football in main stream media. More women's coaches, more discussion, more active interest, and more money from the private sector/sponsorships, is urgently need now from this point on---if the Australian Women's World Cup in Australia is going to be a success we need to now keep up the pressure on government with more discussion on all fronts. Good article Janakan. :football:
Luke
Guest
Mel Andreatta is at Brisbane Strikers and I believe she also coaches in the football academy at Marsden sports school.
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
Good article Janakan, and thanks for giving the women's game some air. More money is needed, and no doubt that's going to be hard to find in the next few years but the World Cup is going to help. The W League season needs to be fixed, especially now given the growth in the women's game world wide. It needs to be a full season. Academies too - how many of the A League clubs include women in their academies? We've got some good young players, lots of teenagers in the W League with lots of potential, and a couple of teenagers now playing in Europe. But as for women coaches, I just don't know what they have to do. Belinda Wilson had a lot of success at Roar but was replaced, apparently because she wasn't playing the Roar style (read, probably had a personality clash with Aloisi, the way her team played in the 2016 final series was the most Roar like performance any Roar team has everr played). She was replaced by Mel Andreatta, another great coach who was also assistant Matildas coach, but she seems to have just disappeared without trace, no reason given, other than the unstated 'we need to use that position as a stepping stone to the main team'. Let's hope the women's game is treated a little differently here now, with the World Cup coming but also, with the knowledge that a good female player can now earn a fair return on the transfer market.
Peter
Guest
Can’t believe coaches get paid that low. Very hard to make a living