Former FIFA whistleblower targets gender imbalance in Australian football
Former FIFA World Cup whistleblower Bonita Mersiades will head up a new organisation that aims to address the imbalance in gender representation within Australian football and support women seeking to become "active players" in the sport.
Women in Football (WiF) was launched on Wednesday at Parliament House by NSW sports minister John Sidoti and with the blessing of Football Federation Australia, whose chairman Chris Nikou has endorsed the concept.
WiF is modelled on a group of the same name in Britain and will be led by Mersiades, an ex-FFA employee and now staunch advocate for structural reform in international football. She will be joined on the organisation's initial committee by seven others, among them former Matildas coach Alen Stajcic.
Mersiades said the under-representation of women in football was a long-standing problem in Australia, pointing to several recent examples, including the absence of any women on a panel launched last week to review the country's youth development pathways.
"We are not calling for quotas; we believe women are quite capable of getting there on merit if the environment is right," Mersiades said on Wednesday. "But we want to help reset that environment so it is right."
We are not calling for quotas; we believe women are quite capable of getting there on merit if the environment is right.
Bonita Mersiades
"The concept of Women in Football is that, as an association, we’re not going to stand on the sidelines, wring our hands and say it can’t be done. We’re just going to get in and do it.
"We want everyone in football to advocate for, and celebrate, women’s roles in football until it becomes the norm.
"It is only by giving women the opportunity to be active players in the main game ... it is only by women putting their hands up to say, ‘I want to be part of this’ ... and only by people like us raising these issues and trying to do something positive that, eventually, we won’t need to talk about it any more."
A core part of WiF's plans is the establishment of a database of women who wish to be more involved in football, to be used for consideration when clubs or associations are seeking to employ new people in coaching, management or other positions. It will be called 'Trixie's List', named after Trixie Tagg, the first female coach of the Matildas.
"From my perspective, anything that encourages and supports more women to get involved in our game, the better,” Nikou said.
“I know from a grassroots perspective that so many women form the backbone of volunteer effort, but we have yet to see that translate into women in representative numbers in management and administration.
"An initiative such as ‘Trixie’s List’ to help football federations and clubs find suitably qualified women for roles is welcome and practical, as is the idea of providing professional development and networking opportunities for women in football."