A member of the 11-member advisory committee formed by the AFL Players' Association to manage the integration of women footballers into clubs says the new league is an opportunity for the AFL to lead the nation in women's sport.
The new panel of players and gender equity experts honing detail to insure environments are genuinely inclusive from scratch met for the first time on Friday.
The director of the federal government's workplace gender equality agency, Libby Lyons, and the chief executive of the Grace Papers organisation, Prue Gilbert, who has advised the likes of Australia Post, Ernst & Young and Metro Trains on issues including pregnancy, careers and discrimination are on the panel.
Seven female players from around Australia who are set to join AFL clubs, Melbourne player and women's football coach Lynden Dunn and AFLPA CEO Paul Marsh complete the group.
The female player panel members are Courtney Cramey, Emma King, Leah Kaslar, Bree White, Tiarna Ernst, Lauren Arnell and Maddy Collier.
Ernst told Fairfax Media that planning for how resources will be shared by male and female players at clubs from day one would go a long way to reducing hurdles in transition.
"This is new territory," Ernst said. "It's about feeling like we're supported, that we feel equal in the sense of being welcomed into the clubs, that we've got the available resources to be able to perform recovery and injury prevention.
"We have to make sure the girls are not overrun, that their injuries are treated and prevented in the first place, and things like being able to go to the ice bath and do a proper ice bath, having access, not being pushed out.
"All of us players would be able to tell quite horrendous stories from grassroots footy level where we would have to get changed in the caravan next to the field because that was the female 'change room'. We didn't actually have the luxury of having a change room.
"I think it's a real opportunity for the AFL to really raise the bar in how a female athlete should be treated and privileged to the resources that they're able to access. This is an opportunity for the AFL to be leaders in Australia."
The four Melbourne-based AFL sides – Melbourne, the Western Bulldogs, Carlton and Collingwood – that beat the likes of St Kilda and Richmond for inaugural women's team licences confidently stated in submissions they are female-friendly homes.
Only last month Adelaide apologised for what was ultimately excused as a mindless faux pas when senior Crows footballers warmed up on the Adelaide Oval during a women's exhibition game.
"That wasn't a good look," Ernst said, but added that historically female footballers had grown resilient through vastly more glaring examples of disadvantage.
AFLPA boss Marsh, who meets the AFL next week to discuss women footballers his association is now representing, highlighted how crucial sound environments will be to retaining the most talented female players, particularly, in the code.
"We're committed to representing female players as passionately and as strongly as we do our male players," he said.
"This group will add a really important perspective to this. Prue and Libby in particular will bring independent thinking and, I imagine, challenge some of the traditional thinking about what should happen with women's sport in this burgeoning professional era."
The AFL has committed to negotiating standard player contracts with the AFLPA for female footballers with top "marquee" status players inked in to earn $25,000 for playing the initial eight-week season.
There is more concern about what the last players on every list will earn. The AFL has said no female footballer will be left out of pocket by the commitment.
"This is about creating a first-class working place for all women within this national league," Lyons said.
"It's just a wonderful opportunity. They're doing it in other codes and the AFL, being probably the biggest of them all, really needs to set the pace here."
Gilbert preferred to focus on opportunities rather than risks in the AFL's momentous undertaking. Front of her mind is insuring the wellbeing of the AFL's new female players is given priority.
"I think the risks are many if we don't get it right. But I think if you flip it you can say what is the opportunity? … The opportunities are much greater than the risks," she said.
AFLPA priorities include negotiating sound terms and conditions and securing additional funding from the AFL to cover female access to support programs and services the association currently provides for elite male players.
"If we're going to be sending the message this is an important part of the AFL, female players should have access to the same type of support services as the men," Marsh said.
"Assembling this committee is all about making sure that the competition, and the players participation in it, can be as positive as possible."
