Concerns over player welfare raised by W-League’s partnership with NWSL | Samantha Lewis | Football

While Australia’s young local talent took centre-stage in the W-League’s opening round, this past weekend saw the league’s NWSL-based players shine: of the 10 goals scored in round two, almost half were put away by players who worked in the US competition in the last six months. Three of which were game-winners. And that’s not even counting the contributions they made elsewhere on the field.

The W-League has long-benefited from its informal relationship with the NWSL, as the two leagues’ complementary playing windows – where the W-League plays in the NWSL off-season and vice-versa – allows top-quality footballers to ply their trade across both competitions. This relationship (among other factors) has seen the standard of the W-League improve over the years as these players, many of whom hail from college systems, have raised the competitive bar.

But the rise of Europe has thrown a spanner in the works. As revealed by Guardian Australia in October, the W-League is now planning to formalise this partnership with the NWSL, creating a type of ‘super league’ to rival Europe’s emerging professional competitions, which offer their players better salaries and year-round playing calendars. It’s a plan driven by fear as much as by ambition.

“The first thing is we need to make sure we have a strategy where we don’t lose [the players],” W-League boss Greg O’Rourke said. “That’s what the connection with the NWSL is all about. I’m not necessarily sure we’ll lose them; I actually think that, with the more players who are in the NWSL who only have half-a-year’s worth of playing, and therefore only half-a-year’s worth of remuneration, [they’ll] be looking for opportunities to back-fill that time.

“But we’re also conscious that we don’t want our league to be the plug league. We don’t want it to be, ‘OK, you do what you want to do in the NWSL and then come into our league as a filler’. We want to be one of the top five leagues in the world and the only way to do that is to make sure we have this harmonious relationship with them.”

The problem with this plan, though, is that this back-to-back playing calendar is one of the reasons Australian players are looking to Europe in the first place.

Much has been written about the emerging financial and competitive advantages of European leagues, but few have addressed the other main draw-card, particularly for Australia’s top footballers: rest. For players like Sam Kerr, Alanna Kennedy, Steph Catley and Lydia Williams, who have spent years going back and forth between the two leagues without so much as a few weeks’ break in between, the idea of a full-time playing calendar in Europe with scheduled breaks is looking increasingly tempting, as many have experienced fatigue, injuries and burn-out as a result of incessant game-time.

“[It’s affected] probably all of us at some stage,” Catley said. “You can’t keep going to America and playing in the W-League because you don’t get a break. And I’ve been doing that for six, seven years now. Eventually it catches up with you. Obviously we want to start thinking of Australia as a full-time competition at some point. I guess it’s just dependent on when the best time is for that, because a lot of us do go over and play in America and then come back and play here. But in the end, it’s not a sustainable option.”

This makes the W-League’s plan to formally partner with the NWSL all the more puzzling. In fact, this partnership looks even less viable given that both the NWSL and the W-League are in the process of expanding. Not only does the problem of calendar overlap arise, but so too does the increasing number of club games players will be expected to play in a calendar year, as extra teams will require extra playing rounds. It also risks losing the American players who have been lighting up the W-League in recent years.

“It’ll be tight and it’ll be tough for Americans in general to get over here and play when there’s such little turn-over,” said American striker Katie Stengel, who scored Canberra United’s only goal over the weekend. “I think both leagues will take different courses and it’ll still be competitive – it’ll still be an exciting league – but it’s going to [have to] change.”

O’Rourke suggested introducing more mid-week games to counter the threat of overlapping calendars, but this suggestion ignores the fact that players are already struggling physically as things stand. It is safe to assume they will struggle with more games played closer together, too.

When asked about the W-League’s future plans, PFA deputy chief executive Kathryn Gill said: “In the consideration of any structure [either partnering with the NWSL or a stand-alone competition], player wellbeing would be a central focus.”

Women’s football is entering a new era of domestic professionalism, and it seems only a matter of time before players must choose between Australia and the US. The W-League has aspirations of being one of the top five leagues in the world but until it becomes a full-time competition, the welfare and participation of its greatest asset –the players themselves – remain at risk.