AFL clubs have reportedly been ordered to include women in their decision making process at the 2024 draft in a move that has been labelled “tokenistic”.
All 18 clubs bolstered their lists with rising young footy stars across two night at Marvel Stadium.
Now Tom Elliot has told 3AW listeners that AFL Executive General Manager Football Laura Kane ordered all clubs to include a woman in their ‘war room’ where club management strategise their draft selections and trades.
‘A prominent footballing identity who you all would have heard of rang me yesterday,’ he said.
‘They said that Laura Kane, who is a senior executive at the AFL, told every club ahead of the draft that they had to have at least one woman in their respective war rooms.
‘So what this means, the war rooms tend to have 10 to 12 people, and Laura Kane allegedly told every club that at least one of them had to be female.’
AFL Executive General Manager Football Laura Kane allegedly told all 18 clubs they were required to have a woman in their war room at the 2024 draft
While many clubs already had women involved in the process, or where able to bring in women with football and management experience, other clubs were forced to include ring-ins.
Elliot reported that an AFLW player and a young woman from a club’s membership team were roped in just to appease the AFL directive, without having any involvement in the draft decision making process at all.
‘I then find out that two Melbourne-based clubs had to do this. One of them simply just grabbed one of their AFLW players and said please come and sit in here so if the cameras go on us they can see there is a woman here,’ Elliot reported.
‘Another very well supported AFL team went and got a young girl who works in the membership department as they were ringing people up making sure they were renewing their memberships.
‘They said to her, come and sit in the war room so if the camera goes on us, they will see there is a woman here.’
Elliot slammed the alleged edict, calling it insulting for women who hold ambitions of working in management and decision-making positions at footy clubs.
‘Now I know what the AFL is trying to do. They want to say oh look, we have women who are part of the club’s decision making processes and look there is a woman here and she is helping decide which young player is going to get drafted,’ he said.
‘But it is tokenistic, it really is.
Some clubs brought in token women, including an AFLW player, to meet the AFL requirement
‘In fact, if you were an ambitious, talented, successful woman, you wouldn’t want to be told you’re only here because there is an edict which has come down from AFL House saying we have to have at least one woman in the room.
‘That is insulting to the women who work at the club.’
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the AFL for comment.
Plenty of footy fans questioned the alleged edict.
‘Why not just choose the best people? Why do we have to have quotas?’ one asked.
‘You haven’t earned your spot you don’t get a seat in the war room,’ posted another.
‘This is disgusting. It’s great when women are involved in football but they’ve gotta be the right person for the job not just forced on us to fill a quota,’ added another.
Others defended the decision, saying it was necessary to force change in the male-dominated landscape in the AFL.
‘We should focus less on Laura Kane’s directive itself and more on why the AFL felt compelled to issue it. In certain spaces, being ‘ambitious, talented, and successful’ isn’t enough when you’re female. This isn’t tokenism; it’s a necessary step toward change,’ one footy fan posted.
‘As a woman who has been qualified to be in the war room, but has had those opportunities given to males because they are male, although this instruction is galling … the door being opened even a crack for women is necessary because it has been so firmly closed for decades,’ added another.
