Women’s sporting teams, which often have to fit their training and matches around men’s and boys’ sport, have welcomed a state government initiative that will mean councils must provide equal access to facilities for all genders or miss out on funding.
Rose Mason, senior women’s vice president of the West Footscray Roosters Australian rules team and a player, said it has often been accepted in the past that women’s and girls’ teams will be given inconvenient training times, lower standard grounds and facilities that are not designed for females.
“That’s just the way it’s been done. So just deal with it, girls,” said Mason of a traditional attitude in community sport.
”It’s one of those things, it’s like it’s come from the history where like the men get to train when they want because they’re the men, it’s their football club. But it’s like, well the football club is not just the men’s team anymore,” she said.
But the state government has mandated that, from 2024, councils in Victoria must ensure equal access to sporting facilities for all genders to be eligible for infrastructure funding as part of the Fair Access Policy Roadmap, with the aim of levelling the playing field for women.
Mason said that when the boys team’s training overlaps with theirs, they are given a quarter of the oval for warm-ups and have to wait for them to be done to be given full access. She added that when it comes to fixturing of games, the women often get the leftovers, which are usually the games at the end of the day, and get their fixture months after the men.
“The men have their full fixture, grounds, times, everything, in November the year before the season starts. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we get our fixture three months out. And three months is generous, I would say it’s probably like four or five weeks out,” Mason said.
“And then we have fixture changes every week, things change at the drop of a hat and we don’t get a say. It’s just like, ‘something has to give, so the women’s team have to give’. And it’s not just us that experience that, I think it’s a lot of the women’s teams in the competition.”
Aish Ravi coaches the School Sport Victoria under-18 girls soccer team, which usually trains on Wednesday evenings at Kingston Heath. But last week, Ravi said, they were told they couldn’t use the facility due to a men’s Australia Cup game between Bentleigh Greens and Sydney FC.
“We have been told we cannot use the facility and therefore we are trying to find an alternative venue on short notice, which makes it difficult for us to train and reach our best,” said Ravi.