The newly-formed Kyneton Women’s Football Club have nowhere to play for the 2025 season after being rejected from three local leagues in what their president has called “systemic neglect”.
The team of 35 female footballers broke away from Kyneton Football and Netball Club after the 2024 season following claims of inequitable treatment and disrespect to form the Kyneton Women’s Eagles.
KFNC denied allegations and maintains it has always been as inclusive as possible.
The women described their experience at KFNC to ABC sport as a “horrible, volatile environment”.
KWFC are now in search of a home, after being rejected by three local leagues, including the Riddell District Football Netball League, who were the side’s last hope with the league’s fixture released on Sunday without their inclusion.
KFNC are also not featured in the fixture, meaning there are no senior women’s teams from Kyneton in the local league.
The Ballarat Football Netball League and AFL Central Victoria both said the new club had missed a December deadline to join their leagues and RDFNL denied their application for a standalone team.
The RDFNL said the KWFC application was rejected because of the failure to meet the RDFNL Statement of Rules criteria and the deadline for new clubs under the AFL Victoria rules.
A group of central Victorian women’s footballers is making a stand, starting its own club in pursuit of gender equity. (Supplied: Kyneton Women’s Football Club )
RDFNL said they workshopped five different solutions for Kyneton’s women’s only club, including tabling an affiliation as a second team under the Mount Alexander Falcons.
“The RDFNL has already shown a preparedness to work with women’s only Football Club’s, the Mt Alexander Falcons who are a women’s only Football Club are an affiliate Club of the RDFNL and have been for two years,” a statement from RDFNL read.
“The RDFNL, the Mt Alexander Falcons and their LGA (local government association) had all given the green light for the team to have a place to participate in the RDFNL Senior Women’s competition for 2025. The KWFC has chosen to not take up that offer and therefore have chosen not to participate in the RDFNL in 2025.”
However, president of KWFC Natalie Korinfsky said this option was “completely unviable” as it would pose a huge financial burden on the Falcons, including a loss of access to their sponsors without the ‘Kyneton’ name.
Furthermore, some players would be excluded due to the travel time and the team’s autonomy would be removed without access to the town’s name.
Kyneton women’s team training preseason. (Supplied: Sophie McLeod)
Korinfsky, Kyneton’s women’s coach Phil Hawkes and other members of the team met with executives from AFL Victoria last Tuesday but couldn’t come to a solution to play.
“We think this is a real detriment to what all these leagues champion. They champion building women’s sports and making sure there’s no barriers, but we find that that is actually not happening on the ground,” Korinfsky said.
“There have been multiple barriers to allowing us to exist in these old frameworks, and we’re just growing more and more frustrated that these pieces of paper don’t actually translate to actions on the ground to allow women and gender diverse people to have fair access to community sport… It’s systematic neglect.”
Korinfsky said they asked AFL Victoria to put together a panel of three independent parties to review their application to the RDFNL against the criteria to join but had that suggestion rejected.
Korinfsky said the playing group were feeling sadness and disappointment at not being able to play.
“We are at the point where we’re exploring some options with some clubs that we know have really good cultures and really good processes in place that we feel comfortable with our players going over to, if they choose to,” Korinfsky said.
“In the end, it’s a choice that they get to make as individuals. [But] we are still holding out some hope that maybe something could change at the 11th hour.”
