The AFL has announced the format and structure the 2019 AFLW season will take, and from top to bottom is a bitterly disappointing mess that shows quite clearly just how little league officials actually think of the nations premier women’s footy competition.
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With the league adding Geelong and North Melbourne to the competition next year, speculation was rife that league bosses might actually reduce the overall number of games each club plays in the course of the season. Today’s announcement rebuffs that speculation, but that is literally the only positive from it.
In season 2019, the 10-team competition will be split into two conferences of five teams. From there, the league will run a 7-round season, meaning some teams will simply not play each other.
The season structure will comprise of four inter-conference games and three games against cross conference rivals. The conference pools, which have not been decided, will see last year’s grand finalists Western Bulldogs and Brisbane placed in opposite conferences. The bottom two teams from last season – Carlton and Fremantle – will also be split up. As will both Geelong and North Melbourne as newcomers to the league.
The season will begin in “the first week of February” much like in previous seasons, and will run for seven weeks. Following that, a two-week finals series will be played featuring two preliminary finals and a Grand Final. The prelims will be contested by the top team from one conference versus the second team from the other, and vice versa. Meaning the Grand Final could wind up being an inter-conference game after all that, which is some real galaxy-brain bullshit.
Unlike in previous years, the Grand Final will be contested during Round 2 of the men’s season. This, the AFL claims, is to ensure “minimal overlap” with the men’s season. Jesus christ.
In perhaps the most baffling and insulting reasoning for truncating the season, the league claimed that “Managing costs was also a significant factor in this decision, with the AFL paying for player wages and all operations (travel, accommodation, etc) associated with the national competition.” After sinking untold millions into the AFLX and spending $180million-odd on the purchase of Etihad Stadium in recent times, this is an absurd slap in the face.
More to that, the league has yet to secure a broadcast deal for next season, which it asserts will be announced in October along with the full 2019 fixture.
The AFL executive has repeatedly shown that they have no real interest in seriously pursuing the AFLW as anything more than an object of gimmicky tokenism. Announcements like this – a feckless piece of corporate lunacy claiming their hands are tied due to costs (COSTS) – doesn’t do anything to change that.
It’s fucking shameful. An absolute disgrace. And the effects of shit like this will take years to be undone, if they ever will be at all.
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