ALL AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL League (AFL) clubs will have a team in the women’s top flight (AFLW) from the 2022/23 season after the league granted licences to Essendon, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide and Sydney Swans today.
Eighteen clubs will now have a side in the AFLW, a competition which began in 2017 with just eight teams.
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan described the granting of the licences as “a defining day” for Australian rules football.
“To have 18 AFLW clubs is to send a message to every female playing footy that they can play for any one of our 18 teams,” McLachlan said.
“Simply, the competition is now whole. Today is a pretty defining day, I think, in the history of Australian football.”
The upcoming season will remain a 14-team competition, with the new sides being given 16 months to prepare for their AFLW bow next winter.
Fourteen Irish players competed in last season’s AFLW, including Tipperary’s Orla O’Dwyer who starred in Brisbane’s title-winning campaign.
The soon-to-be expanded season, however, will make it more difficult for Irish players to return home for club and inter-county football from ’22/23.
