Matildas’ European migration exciting but fanning W-League anxiety | Football

In the 24 hours between the preliminary squad release and the starting XI announcement for Brisbane Roar’s game against Sydney FC on Thursday night, one W-League player’s career took a sudden and dramatic detour.

Hayley Raso, the Matildas winger adored around the world for her dynamic playing style, remarkable comeback from a spinal injury and characteristic hair ribbon, was scratched from Brisbane’s squad hours before they took to the field. Raso’s omission stoked earlier rumours that she had a contract with Women’s Super League club Everton FC – a signing confirmed a few days later.

It makes Raso the third Australian player currently signed in England’s top tier following Jacynta Galabadaarachchi at West Ham and Sam Kerr at Chelsea FC. Fellow Matilda Caitlin Foord is poised to join them after Arsenal head coach Joe Montemurro last week signalled the club’s interest in the former Sydney FC winger.

These moves follow a trend in recent month of Australian female footballers pursuing opportunities in Europe. Since July’s Fifa Women’s World Cup, six players have or had signed for clubs in the region: Galabadaarachchi, Kerr, Emily Gielnik, Lisa De Vanna, Alex Chidiac and Aivi Luik. Reports suggest more are likely to follow.

It’s a shift as exciting for Australian women’s football as it is predictable. The rise of Europe on the international stage, reflected in seven of the eight World Cup quarter-finalists coming from the continent, has coincided with greater investment at a domestic level. England, the emerging destination of choice, has been the most progressive in this sense, with the WSL becoming the first (and so far, only) fully professional women’s league in the world.

While other nations cannot yet boast the same league-wide set-up as the WSL, an increasing number of clubs (mostly the ‘big’ franchises such as Barcelona, Juventus, Lyon, and Bayern Munich) provide professional salaries, facilities and resources for their women’s teams anyway. The result is a mirror of the men’s game: clusters of big clubs floating to the top of their respective leagues season after season. It comes as no surprise, then, that the world’s best players are flocking to these clubs and leagues, attracted by their off-field support as much as by their on-field successes.

And yet these recent moves by Australia’s female footballers have ushered in a new kind of anxiety among its football fraternity: that the W-League will crumble once its star players leave. It’s a fear that’s becoming increasingly acute as the gap between Matildas and non-Matildas widens. Indeed, this fear has driven the W-League to cling ever-closer to its partnership with the NWSL in the US, hoping that the prospect of year-round football across two competitions will be enough to attract American talent and retain Australia’s most marketable footballers.

But the Matildas’ European exodus is no crisis. Instead, it should be viewed as the next step in the evolution of the women’s game. Professionalism ought to be the global goal for women’s football in the next decade. The World Cup showed interest is booming, and leagues and federations are in a stronger position than ever before to capitalise. What we’re now seeing is the product of this next step, where domestic leagues – not just national teams – are becoming the key driver of growth.

What matters now is how the W-League responds. There is, of course, a double-standard at work here where the success of male players like Aaron Mooy, Mat Ryan and Tom Rogic in Europe did not herald the impending collapse of the A-League. Indeed, Australian men are expected to test themselves abroad, knowing full well that success in the best leagues translates to success for the Socceroos. Australian football’s feedback loop means the enthusiasm generated by the national team filters down the pyramid, sparking the next generation of local talent who develop domestically before stretching their wings elsewhere. It’s sentiment perfectly encapsulated by the competition’s slogan, ‘Where Heroes Are Made!’

But herein lies the key difference: the enthusiasm generated by the Matildas in Australia doesn’t have anywhere to grow. For despite being founded in 2008, the W-League is still a semi-professional competition, and its short season length means it’s become little more than a glorified pre-season for the NWSL. The young players (and fans) whose imaginations have been sparked by the Matildas in recent years still don’t have a professional domestic competition that can nurture them or capture their interest. So while Australia’s top players should always be encouraged to seek opportunities in the best competitions in the world, it should not preclude the W-League from becoming one in its own right; to become to Asia, perhaps, what the WSL is to Europe.

Because, for the most part, the current ‘Golden Generation’ of Matildas don’t want to leave the W-League. As Katrina Gorry told Guardian Australia after Brisbane’s game against Sydney: “We would love to stay home and play in our home country in front of our family and friends, and get more and more international [players] over – not just Americans, but from all over the world. I think [a professional women’s league] would be awesome for Australia, especially with the bid coming on. It’s something we should definitely think about doing in the next couple of years.” The onus is now on football’s decision-makers to be ambitious in this space, to catch this heaving wave or else watch it roll onwards without them.