The Kyneton women's football team's story was always about more than just one club

After a public saga lasting more than a year, the women's football team formerly known as the Kyneton Women's Football Club was this week green-lit to play in the Central Victorian Football League (CVFL).

The group of more than 30 Victorian women defected from Kyneton Football Netball Club in late 2024 after claiming "a horrible, volatile environment" and were left in limbo with nowhere to play for the 2025 season.

After being denied entry into three local leagues last season, the AFL announced they could join the CVFL under a new name, the Wedge-Tailed Eagles Football Club.

It comes as women and girls are playing footy in record numbers, but alongside that are many stories of players dropping out and being turned away from the game after negative experiences at local clubs.

After Kyneton's story first reached the media, Wedge-Tailed Eagles club president Natalie Korinfsky said players from clubs across the country shared similar stories with them.

"We were contacted by people from clubs across the country — women, men and gender-diverse people, players, coaches and volunteers — sharing similar stories of exclusion, inequity and powerlessness," Korinfsky said.

"It felt as though the first article had lifted the lid on something that had existed for a long time but was rarely spoken about openly.

"At the same time, many who reached out were still too afraid to speak publicly. They could see what was happening to us, and the message felt clear: if you speak up, you risk your opportunity to play.

"That's why this felt like being the canary in the coal mine."

A widespread issue

A new report from Federation University and Victoria University conducted 15 interviews with Australian women and girls, and found that while participation rates were increasing for women and girls in traditionally male-dominated sports such as football codes and cricket, retention rates were much lower than for men and boys.

Rochelle Eime, author of the report and professor of sport science at Federation University, said some athletes had really positive experiences, but others terrible experiences, which drove them away from sports.

"These clubs were traditionally male-only clubs. They were set up by males for males and there's some of the sort of older generations who don't maybe accept that they're a space and a place and environment for women and girls [now]," Eime told ABC Sport.

"They want to still be the boys' club. And sometimes, too, there's a prioritisation for the boys and the men that they get the best fields and courts and coaching, and the girls sort of get whatever's left."

In the Change Our Game State of Play survey, more than a quarter (28 per cent) of women who played community sport said they had considered leaving their club due to inequitable treatment.

In the report released in July 2023, of the 670 Victorians canvassed, more than half reported gendered discrimination in community sport and 55 per cent said they had experienced or seen sexist language and jokes.

Eime added that while some cultural environments still included sexist remarks at clubs, sometimes it also came down to a lack of knowledge of how to make clubs more inclusive.

"There were some really good instances of boys and men being great allies and stamping out bad behaviour, really trying to understand how to improve the environment and the experience," Eime said.

"Sometimes people make decisions just based on their experience and the way it's always been done, and it's not necessarily menacing.

"For example, women and girls would like a change room, toilet cubicles and shower that's got a door and a lock on it and some sanitary bins … boys and men [on committees] maybe don't think about that because it's not an issue for them.

"Whereas if we had women and girls as part of those in the committees and decision making, they would think about those things."

'Not really giving a f***'

A common problem is an even allocation of resources, where women would often get half or less of an oval to train on.

A local player from Melbourne, who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of consequences from her club, told the ABC she loved her club but often felt the disparity in treatment between the men's and women's sides.

She said when they both trained on the same night, the men got three quarters of the oval and the women got the remaining quarter.

"And the men just run into our side [anyway], not really giving a f***," she said.

She added she had met lifelong friends through playing footy but it also came with challenges that had been "mentally fairly draining".

"I love having beers after training but you would never find me in that club hanging out with those men because of the kind of locker-room chat and the boys chat that just is kind of gross," she said.

Another common problem is women's players feeling like they cannot get help, or that they will be listened to, by the leagues and their clubs when issues arise.

Sophie Ulcoq, 30, who plays at North Brunswick Football Club in division three, said players at her club would often raise complaints to the league but felt they were never taken seriously.

These included finding issues with the women's fixture only coming out a week before games, the scheduling of matches, where women had to be positioned around the men's prime-time games, and inequitable resourcing, including access to trainers.

"I wouldn't even know where to go if I needed to talk to someone about issues," she said.

'Right to build something better'

Korinfsky said their experiences reinforced that "the biggest barrier to women's sport is not participation".

"Women and girls are already showing up in record numbers. The barrier is governance; the policies, structures and cultural assumptions that have not evolved at the same pace as the game itself," she said.

"When we turn up to play sport in our communities, we deserve to know the environment is safe, respectful and equitable. That is not a big demand. It is a basic right. And if those fundamentals are not provided, we have the right to build something better — and to have a genuine pathway to participation."

She said the Kyneton women's story was never just about their club.

"It was about whether women and gender-diverse people truly have the same freedom to build, shape and control their sporting futures as those who came before them," she said.

"Community sport is for everyone. Let's make sure that means something beyond policy documents and words written on websites and in papers."