The transformative effects that England’s hosting of the 2022 Women’s European Championship had on its domestic game are well known in Australia. The country got its version of this phenomenon when it co-hosted the 2023 Women’s World Cup and its domestic competition, the A-League Women, basked in the reflected halo’s light as it grew to 12 sides, secured a new collective bargaining agreement increasing spending limits and became the first Australian football code to introduce a full home-and-away women’s season. There were record crowds and TV ratings.
Come the start of 2025-26, however, on the eve of Australia preparing to host its own continental showpiece, the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup, and those heights feel increasingly bygone. Most of the news dominating the buildup for the new year has been less than ideal, the coming campaign seeing the league – a closed competition without promotion and relegation – contract in size for the first time since Central Coast went on hiatus before 2010-11. It will do so after Western United’s teams were placed into a period of “conditional hibernation” amid their embattled attempts to stave off collapse.
Gripped in financial turmoil, United, based in Melbourne’s west, had their parent companies placed into liquidation in August after a petition from the Australian Tax Office. That came weeks after the unexpected stripping of their A-League licence by the first instance board of Football Australia – which still maintains regulatory oversight of the top flight under the terms of its independence. A protracted series of appeals, which remain ongoing, commenced but with the season scheduled to kick off on Halloween, the hibernation decision came in early September to allow some certainty and for fixtures to be released.
To some, stating a club stripped of its licence and the subject of a winding-up order from tax authorities to be in “hibernation” might carry the same energy as John Cleese stating that a parrot is simply pining for the fjords. But United, who will nominally continue to run their boys and girls academies over the coming year, insist that they will return “revitalised”.
Revitalisation notwithstanding, though, United won’t be part of the A-League Women for the coming season; shrinking it to 11 sides and reducing its weekly games from six to five. While their men’s and women’s players were able to secure releases from their contracts, the imminent start of the campaign means that many of United’s players will be unable to find new homes before the season begins. And despite proposals from the players’ union the PFA for temporary roster spots and salary-cap exemptions, it has already been signalled that no allowances will be made for clubs to sign former United talent. Players, thus, face losing a year of their professional careers, with most facing no competitive minutes until the start of semi-professional, state-based NPL competitions in 2026.
“The dragged-out process and poor timing have left me in such a vulnerable position – suddenly without the opportunity to play A-League and facing the uncertainty of what comes next,” Maja Markovski, now a free-agent striker, says. “On top of that, I’m rehabbing a knee injury on my own, without the support and structure that a professional environment brings. It’s been isolating and incredibly difficult, trying to stay strong mentally while feeling like the rug has been pulled from under me.”
The troubles at United, who last season were led by Kat Smith, also ensure that only one of the league’s 11 sides will be coached by a woman heading into the season. And with that coach, Bev Priestman, at the helm of the New Zealand-based side Wellington Phoenix, it means that just over two years on from a home World Cup in which development for female coaches was a key legacy goal for Football Australiathere will be no female coaches leading an Australian A-League Women’s side.
Adding to the melancholy air, this is all taking place against a sweeping program of austerity across the league and its clubs – a program that is reportedly behind the decision to not bring in Auckland as an expansion franchise until the 2027-28 season. A much celebrated silver lining of these cuts is improved opportunities for young players to play, but this invariably is paired with a squeezing out of established talent who, while maybe not destined for overseas, guide youngsters and raise the standard of the on-field product.
With a home Asian Cup looming, a crossroads is being approached. The PFA is calling for the event to become a launching pad for a pathway towards the implementation of full-time professionalism and the launch of a deliberate strategy to convert supporters of the Matildas into fans of A-League Women’s clubs, lest Australia get left behind. Years of strategic blunders, however, have left the leagues emphasising consolidation and financial repair.
The Asian Cup is the last major tournament, the last sugar hit, that can be realistically banked for a while. It increasingly feels like a Rubicon moment.
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