Following the Australian Professional Leagues’ decision to sell off its grand finals to Destination NSW for the next three years, this year’s A-League Women decider was never going to be just about the game. The deal has dominated the shrinking Australian football discourse ever since it was announced, and the APL knew the rancour witnessed around this week’s match was something to be endured, rather than seen off.
The bitter irony is that, under the APL’s plans, the ALW grand final is not supposed to be just about the game, anyway. Part of the justification for selling hosting rights was that a fixed staging post would explicitly allow the fixture to evolve into a marquee event stretching beyond the match. With a World Cup on the way, girl’s youth participation exploding and the competition expanding to offer more top-tier opportunities, this new paradigm would ostensibly see the contest become the centrepiece of a broader celebration of women’s football.
That was the theory, at least. And in the years ahead, with a bit more time to plan and some re-jigging of the league’s calendar, it should be acknowledged that such a scenario may eventuate. But at the moment, administrators find themselves confronted by a hostile fanbase whose trust in their ability to serve as the league’s custodians has almost completely eroded. Those fans feel less like valued and respected partners than walking cash registers whose passion and traditions have become just another product.
The circumstances surrounding this week’s grand final have provided a lightning rod for anger.
On Sunday, Western United will “host” Sydney FC at Parramatta Stadium. The reward for United and their supporters after defying the odds in the club’s first season is not a game in Melbourne’s west, but Sydney’s. The Sky Blues, who despite winning the premiership nominally lost the right to home advantage when they were defeated in a qualifying final, will sleep in their own beds and make their own way to the game, as will their fans.
One can see why the APL is being forced to persevere; there is no real way to justify this logic in the short-term, and they can only work towards proving that a fixed hosting location’s benefits justify it all in the long-run.
For fans of other Australian codes, such a scenario likely doesn’t raise eyebrows; a team from Melbourne has routinely faced down these problems and emerged victorious in the NRL, for example. It is also worth noting that a cohort of football fans begrudgingly accept the funds or potential benefits associated with the move. Another chunk just want to enjoy watching their team play and probably feel alienated by the furore.
But for a vast swathe of the game’s fanbase – a core that has been reared on a tradition of grand finals being awarded based on some form of sporting merit – Sunday represents a justifiable anathema.
Calls for boycotts – of either the entire finals series or just the grand finals – have increased in volume. But those calls have also faced pushback from supporters who don’t see all finals, especially a home final, as being the same as a neutral-site grand final. For others, December’s Melbourne derby pitch invasion sapped a lot of enthusiasm. Football fans have no designated spokesperson or leader; anger binds this collective with a common enemy, but any counter-action is the subject of bitter debate and shifting consensus.
Compounding this, the ALW grand final has exposed further schisms as this group looks to channel their frustration and anger at the already crowded intersection of challenges and movements that exist within the women’s game.
Supporters of the ALW are more likely to identify with the league as a whole in addition to their own team, or to simply classify themselves as supporters of women’s sport in general. For them, boycotts of the biggest games in the domestic calendar sends a message to broadcasters and sponsors that will only see empty seats and a lack of passion and support, with little care for the underlying reasoning. That, in their view, ultimately punishes players and the game’s growth. Sydney FC supporter group The Cove recently announced a boycott of the men’s finals, for instance, but encouraged support of the women’s.
That these conversations need to happen at all is lamentable. Counter arguments have been made that any break in solidarity represents acquiescence and self-indulgence; having one’s cake and eating it too. It’s hardly a unified celebration of women’s football.
That’s a shame, because a football match is going to take place on Sunday. It’s probably going to be a good one, too.
