AFL clubs have reportedly been ordered to include women in their decision-making process in the 2024 draft, in a move that has been labeled “symbolic”.
All 18 clubs bolstered their rosters with rising young soccer stars over two nights at Marvel Stadium.
Now Tom Elliot has said 3AW listeners that AFL Executive General Manager of Football Laura Kane ordered all clubs to include a woman in their ‘war room’ where club management strategizes their draft picks and trades.
“Yesterday a prominent football figure called me that you all would have heard of,” he said.
‘They said Laura Kane, who is a senior AFL executive, told each club before the draft that they must have at least one woman in their respective war rooms.
“So what does this mean? War rooms tend to have 10 to 12 people, and Laura Kane supposedly told each club that at least one of them had to be a woman.”
AFL chief executive of football Laura Kane reportedly told all 18 clubs they must have a woman in their war room in the 2024 draft.
While many clubs already had women involved in the process, or were able to bring in women with football and management experience, other clubs were forced to include ring-ins.
Elliot reported that an AFLW player and a young woman from a club membership team were roped in just to appease the AFL board, with no involvement in the draft decision-making process.
“Then I found out that two Melbourne-based clubs had to do this. One of them just grabbed one of their AFLW players and said, ‘Please come and sit here so that if the cameras are on us, they can see there’s a woman here,” Elliot reported.
‘Another AFL team with a lot of support went and got a young lady working in the membership department while they were calling people to make sure they renewed their memberships.
“They told him: come and sit in the war room, so if the camera focuses on us, they will see that there is a woman here.”
Elliot criticized the alleged edict, calling it insulting to women who have ambitions to work in management and decision-making positions at football clubs.
‘Now I know what the AFL is trying to do. They want to say, “Look, we have women who are part of the club’s decision-making processes and look, there is a woman here who is helping to decide which young player will be selected,” she said.
But it’s symbolic, it really is.
Some clubs brought in token women, including an AFLW player, to meet the AFL’s requirement.
“In fact, if you were an ambitious, talented, successful woman, you wouldn’t want to be told you’re here just because there’s an edict issued from AFL House that says we have to have at least one woman in the room.
“That’s an insult to the women who work at the club.”
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the AFL for comment.
Many football fans questioned the supposed edict.
‘Why not just choose the best people? Why do we have to have quotas?’ one asked.
“If you haven’t earned your spot, you won’t get a seat in the war room,” another posted.
‘This is disgusting. “It’s great that women are involved in football, but they have to be the right person for the job and not just force us to fill a quota,” added another.
Others defended the decision, saying it was necessary to force change in the male-dominated landscape in the AFL.
‘We should focus less on Laura Kane’s directive itself and more on why the AFL felt compelled to issue it. In certain spaces, being “ambitious, talented and successful” is not enough when you are a woman. This is not symbolism; “It’s a necessary step towards change,” posted one football fan.
‘As a woman who has been qualified to be in the war room, but men have been given those opportunities because they are men, although this instruction is infuriating… for the door to be opened even a little for women is necessary because it has been so firmly closed for decades,” added another.