SYDNEY (Reuters) - Professional Footballers Australia has warned that the country risks losing more and more female talent to U.S. and European leagues over the next few years if it does not professionalise the A-league Women.
The PFA's annual report on the 12-team league has recommended that the country's hosting of the 2026 Women's Asian Cup should be leveraged to make the ALW fully professional from the 2026-27 season.
The report said the rapid growth of the professional women's game in the U.S. and Europe threatened the ALW's ability to retain the sort of players who will become the next generation of national team players.
"The ALW has already had its top-end talent siphoned off over the past five years, and these new developments risk seeing its middle hollowed out," said the report, which was released on Tuesday.
"The ALW is growing, but superior playing opportunities are growing faster."
Women's football in Australia received a huge boost when the Matildas national team captivated the nation with their run to the semi-finals of the 2023 Women's World Cup on home soil.
ALW attendances jumped 72% on the back of that tournament but the league would always struggle to retain players while it was unable to provide them with a livelihood, the report said.
Total player payments have reached a record A$8.4 million ($5.68 million), but 62% of ALW players still have another job outside football.
"In the player survey, 69% of ALW players said they would consider leaving football early for some reason other than form or fitness, with low club salaries being by far the most-picked reason," the report said.
The authors of the report accepted that many would view moving the ALW to fully professional status as prohibitively expensive.
"To those who see women's football purely as a cost, accepting this recommendation will look unaffordable," the report said.
"The data in the report shows that we can less afford not to. It is time for those who recognise this moment as an opportunity to invest in football's biggest growth centre to step up, and for others to step aside."
($1 = 1.4791 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Michael Perry)
