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.
