World Cup bid boosts W-League hopes
A successful bid from New Zealand and Australia to host the Fifa Women’s World Cup in 2023 could be the ‘‘critical catalyst’’ that gets a Wellington Phoenix W-League team underway.
The A-League club wasted no time in reaffirming its intentions to join Australia’s premier women’s football competition once the transTasman World Cup bid became the frontrunner to get the nod later this month with the release of the bid evaluation reports on Wednesday.
And New Zealand Football remains deeply involved in the effort, even as the Covid-19 pandemic is forcing it, the Phoenix, and many other organisations to tighten their belts.
‘‘There’s some great momentum on this side of the Tasman and I think there’s a real interest,’’ chief executive Andrew Pragnell said.
‘‘Covid-19 will have an impact on everyone and everything, but I’d like to think Covid-19’s not going to derail that momentum that was being established pre-Covid.
‘‘Those conversations are back up and running. It’s something we want to explore irrespective of if we win the Women’s World Cup bid or not, but if we do win the bid, there will be momentum and interest in it that might prove to be a critical catalyst.’’
A Phoenix W-League team has long been mooted, but it has started to become a serious prospect in the past 12 months, helped on its way by trans-Tasman collaboration around the World Cup bid.
The team would give New Zealand’s young female footballers a clearer pathway to the professional game and a higher level of competition than at present, and would be a much-needed boost to the women’s game in this country, at a time when it is starting to become stagnant.
What is still required to make it happen is increased commercial support, to help the Phoenix cover the costs of running the team, and the club’s general manager, David Dome, said having a home World
Cup on the horizon would help with that.
‘‘There is some real decent interest from commercial partners around professional women’s football. But the World Cup would focus and hone the whole thing, [so] people can say, look, there is an end goal, a very strong end goal, short term, that we can aim for and be a part of.’’
The Australia-New Zealand World Cup received the highest score following Fifa’s evaluation of the bids, 4.1 out of 5 to Japan’s 3.9 and Colombia’s 2.8, but the final decision will be made later this month, when the Fifa council holds a public vote.
Dome said he was confident the Phoenix W-League proposition would still be a strong one, even if the World Cup bid ultimately fell short. ‘‘I still think it has a lot of relevance, even outside the World Cup bid. We need to have professional women’s football in this country.’’
Plans for a Phoenix W-League team call for it to be based in Sydney, to keep travel costs down, both for the Wellington club and others in the league, which currently consists of nine teams. NZ Football is heavily involved in talks, as the team would be closely aligned to its Future Ferns Domestic Programme and age-group national teams.
Fans in New Zealand should still see the team in action, however, with Dome suggesting two or three games a season could be played in this country, potentially as doubleheaders with the Phoenix A-League side.