With the AFL Women’s competition set to expand to 14 teams in 2020, Head of AFLW Nicole Livingstone said they eventually want to get to the stage where all 18 clubs are represented, but aren’t in any rush to get there.
Livingstone believes making sure the competition can sustain the number of players involved is the next important step before expanding further to 18 sides.
“We will eventually get to the point in time where every club is represented, but it’s just not in the next little while,” Livingstone told SEN Evenings.
“We’re making sure from a player safety point of view, I would be hesitant to bring girls into the competition who aren’t ready, we need to make sure we’re keeping them safe.
“We do need to be mindful of the way that we expand to keep a good standard (of footy).”
St Kilda, Gold Coast, West Coast and Richmond will be joining the competition in 2020 and Livingstone said she was excited to give 420 footballers an opportunity at the elite level.
“What’s really important for us as we grow, we’re moving with two new teams to 300 players in the competition,” she said.
“To put it in perspective, when we think about Super Netball, they have 80 players contracted and we have 300 moving into 2019 and then we move to 420 players being contracted in 2020.
“From a talent point of view, from a game point of view and even a financial sustainability point of view, we really need to make sure that we take some time do it properly.
“We have a nine-week season right now and the thought process is what does that season look like with even more teams coming in, we know 14 for 2020 and our competition committee is currently looking to see what that looks like.”
A 420-player competition means team lists will be remaining at a max of 30 players, despite Carlton and Fremantle almost struggling to field 22 healthy players at stages last season.
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