Matildas interim head coach Tom Sermanni has lambasted the state of the A-League Women, declaring that inadequate resourcing was seeing the competition fall behind the rest of the world and that an urgent rethink was needed into how the competition was run.
Sermanni will oversee what will almost certainly be his final games in his third stint in charge of Australia's women in fixtures against Argentina across the coming week, fielding a squad featuring six current A-League Women players and in which Central Coast boss Emily Husband, Western United coach Kat Smith, and Melbourne City's Melissa Barbieri will be part of his staff.
With his first stint at the helm of the Matildas starting back in 1994, Sermanni has decades of experience in the women's game Down Under, and, while generally presenting with a laid-back, humorous demeanour in his interactions with media, he became notably passionate as he delivered a scathing assessment on the A-League Women's trajectory on Thursday.
"The A-League [unbundled from Football Australia] five years ago, and what we have done since then is we've got home and away, which is an improvement, but we are still grossly underinvested in the women's game here," said Sermanni. "I don't know if it's a thought process going forward about where they want to take the league or what they want to do. But there's a huge amount of work that actually needs to be done.
"It's even more irritating when you think how we had the most successful World Cup ever two years ago, and A League Women are in the situation that they're in now, it's just not good enough."
Sermanni's remarks come just days after Australia topped the AFC Women's Club Competitions Ranking for 2024-25, largely off the back of Melbourne City's run to the final of the first-ever AFC Women's Champions League. Twenty-two players from across nine clubs have also been called up to Matildas throughout the season.
However, in a 2024 survey conducted by players' union Professional Footballers Australia, 59% of A-League Women players said that low wages would be the biggest factor should they leave football earlier, while 96% of respondents in that survey also said competition should transition to full-time professionalism by the 2026-27 campaign.
As it currently stands, the vast majority of current contracts in the A-League Women only cover 35 weeks, with players juggling their work commitments alongside employment outside of football and many playing in their local state competitions during the offseason.
"The players are crystal clear: the A-League Women must relaunch as a fully professional competition by the 2026-27 season," PFA chief executive Beau Busch said. "We must capitalise on the momentum of the AFC Women's Asian Cup, elevate the match day experience -- both in-stadium and on broadcast -- and invest in stronger club environments.
"Setting that as our target and achieving it will prevent us from falling further behind as global standards continue to rise at pace."
Sermanni drew a comparison between investments being made in the A-League Women and the newly launched Canadian Super League, where the minimum wage of CAD$50,000 (AU$56,000) is more than twice that of its Australian equivalent, and the salary cap of CAD$1.6 million (AU$1.8m) dwarfs the AU$600k one in place in the A-League Women.
"Coaches, staff and players are doing exceptionally well," said Sermanni. "But the league itself is in need of significant improvement in its professionalism.
"I think there are three clubs that are suitably staffed -- that's Melbourne City, Melbourne Victory and Wellington Phoenix. The rest of the clubs are completely inadequately staffed. That's a starting point.
"Players get 35-week contracts now. A league has just started in Canada [the Northern Super League] -- football-wise, we're well in advance of Canada -- where the base salary is twice what our basic salary is, where there's full-time staff and full-time players.
"We're still trying to produce players when we have a space of three months where the club has got no contact, no control, no reference point for the players to actually keep them and know what's happening.
"We really need to have, at A-League level, a real rethink. The league has been going for 17 years. When we started the league, the coaches came from our institute programs with full-time coaches -- more full-time staff than we have now, 17 years in."
The governing body of the A-League Women, the Australian Professional Leagues, has been approached for comment.