Melbourne AFLW captain Daisy Pearce has outlined the current sticking points between the playing group and the league with the new collective bargaining agreement.
League HQ and the AFLPA are currently locked in negotiations regarding the next CBA, with pressures mounting given the short turnaround to an August start-date.
Pearce revealed on SEN’s Whateley that one of the main points of contention is the length of the next three seasons. Currently, the league wants the season to remain at 10 games, despite the expansion from 14 to 18 teams.
“At the moment it’s been proposed that it would be a 10-week season over the next three years with no growth. 10 weeks felt okay for the 14 teams last year, it felt like you got a fair and reasonable outcome,” the Dees forward said.
“With the 18 teams next season, from a legitimacy of the competition point of view, but also a player development point of view, you just need to be able to play more football, particularly if you’re not playing in the senior side, the competition in its timeframe now won’t align to many of the state competitions around the country.
“So you’ll just not be playing. Again for the product we need more games and also for your development as an athlete you need to be able to play.
“We want 12 (games) in the next season and then 14 in the season after that. I think most players would be accepting given the short turnaround that we don’t have a lot of time to change things on a broad scale this year.
“If it was 10 and then we saw significant growth beyond that, I think most players would be satisfied by that.
“I think it’s the fact that there’s no growth in the length of the season, that’s an issue.”
When it comes to the subject of pay rises, Pearce said their focus is simply being paid for the hours they actually put in.
“Salary is one of them … it’s not so much about wanting a massive a pay rise, it’s more to be recognised for the amount of work we already do,” she said.
“So the CBA in the season just gone, we were paid for about 15 hours per week of training and most of us do between 20 and 25, it’s just what this competition demands to help it to continue to grow and develop.
“There’s an expectation that is attached to AFLW. It is presented as the like-for-like competition and the AFL’s elite women’s competition.
“It takes a certain amount of training to continue to meet that and see this competition grow, which it has the potential to do quickly and we could see this product be significantly better if we could train more and had the support and resources that we needed to do it.
“Players are doing their best to continue to push that forward within the restrictions that we have, but it’s sort of gotten to a point where it’s a little unsustainable and we do need to start being recognised for the work that we’ve been doing.”
Pearce recently confirmed that she would play-on for the Dees, coming off losing to Adelaide in the Grand Final.
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