Daisy hits out over comp cut

THE biggest name in women’s football Daisy Pearce has led a fierce player and fan backlash against AFL plans to cut the 2019 season.

Pearce said the two-yearold league would be reduced to a “gimmicky tournament” under the proposal. The league will grow from eight clubs to 10 next year but each team could play just six matches before two weeks of finals.

AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan defended the league’s position, likening the national women’s football league to soccer’s quadrennial World Cup.

“The World Cup goes for four weeks — I don’t think anyone’s calling that mickey mouse,” he said.

In February-March this year the eight AFLW teams played a full round of homeand-away games — seven matches — before the grand final won by Western Bulldogs.

“It doesn’t sit well with me or a lot of the players,” an angry Pearce said of the reduced program.

“I get that there’s a commercial reality that they want to keep this competition within the little eight-week timeslot where there’s no sport.

“I thought when those two new teams [North Melbourne and Geelong] come in I was rubbing my hands together.

“I thought we were going to get a legitimate competition here, play everyone once and head into a finals series, you beauty. But it seems not to be the case. The reason it annoys me is this is presented as the women’s AFL elite professional offering by the AFL and it has been lauded as that, that finally there’s an elite women’s competition.

“But with the AFL presenting it as that, it comes with a level of expectation. In reality this is a gimmicky tournament.”

AFL Players Association chief executive Paul Marsh vowed to fight for more homeand-away rounds.

“We understand the AFLW competition is in its infancy and we all need to work together to make it grow,” Marsh said. “What we believe is missing is the vision for where this competition is going.”

McLachlan confirmed the AFL preferred starting after the Australian Open tennis and that the clean air of February-March was ideal.

“No decision’s been made. There’s a discussion about the format for AFLW,” he said.