AFL Players’ Association CEO Paul Marsh has strongly refuted suggestions AFL players would be asked to give up money to help pay AFLW players more.
The Age reported on Wednesday that the AFLPA were meeting with clubs, with the potential for a historic joint collective bargaining agreement being signed once both the men and women’s agreements expires in 2022.
The report also stated there was a chance AFL salaries could be affected in favour of increasing the amount of money available to AFLW players.
But Marsh said it was unhelpful to pit both groups of players against other, saying any thought of AFL players subsidising female footballers was nothing more than speculation.
“To talk about the men subsidising the women has not even been part of the conversation,” he said.
“Clearly we’ve got a situation coming up in a couple of years where the men’s and women’s collective bargaining both finish at the same time. We are having conversations to potentially bring them together but that doesn’t mean that’s how it’ll finish up.
“We have two groups of members here who expect us to continue to take their (thoughts) on board every time we negotiate a new deal. This is not about the men taking a hit for the women. This is about finding a way forward with a model that delivers growth for both the men and women.
“The way this is positioned, it’s playing them both off against each other and that’s the complete opposite of what we’ve trying to achieve here.
“There’s got to be a conversation around the women’s competition and running it properly and the industry needs to look after it properly.
“It’s not about the industry pushing this problem to the male players and saying ‘you pay for the women’, we’ve got to be better than that.”
You can listen to Paul Marsh's full chat on SEN Breakfast in the player below