W League

Great double headers. W Nix team plays before the Mens team... or Visa versa. I'd  watch both games.

The way it should be. I see they do that in the mitre 10 Cup. Certainly makes an evening of it all

Is it though? - does having a double header really bring in extra punters? when you look at the crowds it seems to only cater for those that like to get there early and don't want to go to the pub. And sitting through two games isn't great for those with young families

It can also be seen as a bit patronising as it's always seems to be the women that play as the "curtain raiser" game

If it were to happen, I'd look at using Porirua Park or Newtown Park to start with, grounds that cpuld generate some atmosphere other than the stadium - just use that for when the team gets to the finals!

I'd be all for the men's game as the curtain raiser. Think we'd see more people stay on to watch a second game than to come early. 

A mixture of both approaches to see which is more successful is probably the go in season 1 imo. Some standalone games and some double-headers. Could see the Cake Tin being used most though given the W-League games are broadcast on TV, less admin for Sky/whoever is contracted to broadcast.

I wouldn't, if I'm honest. No more likely to do that than stick around to watch U16s after A-League.

I would turn up early to watch the women's games as a curtain raiser though.

Surely it would depend on if it was going to cost much more to have the facilities at the stadium open for longer. Because if it was going to add to much dont see costs being anywhere near covered by those attending. We hear complaints now about how expensive it is and costs arnt covered by attendances.

While i like the idea of the Phoenix taking this on not convinced at all that the timing is right for it to happen anytime soon.Would much rather they get what we have at moment performing both on and off the field at  consistantly  or at away from the bottom.

Whenever I've heard about the plans for a Phoenix W-League team, they've involved it being based across the Tasman due to travel costs for the rest of the league.

Will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Yipe from memory on the Pod a few months back, Dome said a base in Australia had been identified. Sounded a bit like a State NPL club that was happy to help out??  And of course cash strapped CCM doesn't have a W League team.

Any Phoenix women's team then would consist of players, who had some flexibility to move to Australia for a few months, like students. Sounded like they would also be involved with some local coaching etc - but going a bit off memory here.

Certainly plan was to have the team based in Oz, which was more attractive to the W League/FFA.

I remember a few years ago in the QLD NPL, they had the Malaysian U23 team in the league. So not a completely strange idea in Oz football.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/a-league/121791864/momentum-building-for-wellington-phoenix-wleague-team-ahead-of-world-cup-vote

I cant think of any thing negative about a Nixs W-League team other then them at least playing a few games in Wellington. But I'm based in Western Sydney so i have no excuse to go watch a game. 

who are you and what have you done with Royz?????

We expect better than this from you.

Would the women's Nix side have the same team shirts at the men's side? Or would it be fashioned differently?.

The critical question we all want to know the answer to.

I think you need to stick to your knitting, Royz. You play your anti-jinx role well. Asking important questions is not your strength.

That reminds me of the Smith & Jones football sketch about international football.

Royz is gonna knit the W-League team's kits?

You'd like to think so - Paladin can provide both men's and women's. A lot of the clubs have/used to use Hummel though, so anything is possible. 

Picking up a discussion that was happening in the Maya Hahn thread about the merits of David Dome's whinge last year that NZ Football wasn't letting them enter a team in the New Zealand National Women's League in 2019.

As NelFoos and Coochie note, a Phoenix NWL team might make sense ONCE there is a Phoenix W-League team, to give playing time to wider squad members/academy members (though how this would work with a Wollongong-based W-League team is another matter). not BEFORE.

There is currently no W-League squad and no female academy, so the players for a team last season (which is what David Dome was getting upset about) would have had to come from somewhere else.

When the Phoenix entered the national men's league, they didn't yet have a full academy up and running, but they were offering playing opportunities to young-ish players, which were hard to come by at the time (and still largely are) and they were therefore expanding the player pool.

There is no similar group of players (ready for/needing national league football, but not having the opportunity to play it) in the women's game.

There were only three possible things a Phoenix NWL team would have been last season...

– A collection of really young players, ie those eligible for the 2020 (now 2021) Fifa U-17 Women's World Cup, who were meant to have been away for OFC qualifiers for several weeks in December, making this impossible in reality.

– These players would have all been at school, so not in a position to move to Wellington for September-December merely to play in a league many of them are already in and around.

– A collection of the best players still based in this country, rather than having them spread about the seven federations, which would have immediately been the strongest team in the league, while robbing the existing teams of their best players.

– This is the only one that would have had any synergy with an eventual W-League team, but with the timing of W-League entry, the coaching staff, and the playing pool (once you add in returning overseas pros, Australians, OFC players (though this is surely mostly a PR line), and decisions re: US Colleges) all up in the air, there would have been little continuity and it would at have come at a cost NZ Football was understandably unwilling to pay.

– It would have also meant a lot of uprooting for players from September to December to do nothing more than play the same league they were already playing, unless it was going to be based out of Albany.

– A direct replacement for Capital. 

– This wouldn't have been as problematic, but wouldn't really have served a broader purpose, other than moving the Phoenix brand into the women's game.

Now, in July 2020, the entire structure of the NWL does seem to be on the table in the wake of Covid-19, so maybe the Wellington Phoenix could have a part to play in reconstituting it without being a disruptive force as they would have been in 2019.

But the thing that was being complained about last year – not being able to enter a team in the 2019 NWL, at a time when the W-League team was a lot further away from being a reality than it is now (this was all happening at a time when the joint WWC bid, for example, was still a way off) – was a non-starter for numerous reasons.

I finally got the chance to ask David Dome ask about this in February (they wouldn't speak about it when he originally made comments about it) and he had pivoted to it being not that essential, which makes sense, especially when the thing they (and everyone) keep stressing is the need for commercial support to cover costs. If that's the key bit of work that needs to be done, why add additional costs?

(As an aside, the more you think about what players would make up a Phoenix W-League side, the more questions you wind up with. Not that it's not needed, but it's going to be far less efficient a pathway than you'd hope).

Okay fair enough, and thanks for taking the time to clear that up Andrew.

So the Gong, is confirmed as the likely Australian base of a Nix W League team? Or were you just using that as an example.

And yes that would be a difficulty around having a NWL team, as a type of female version of the Weenix. No ability for the younger NWL level players to train alongside the senior W League squad who are based in NSW. Diminishes alot of the purpose of Nix looking to have a NWL side.

The 'Gong is where the intent is/was.

stop with your factual basis that might stop some people shaking their fist at NZF over this

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/a-league/122544328/the-willpower-is-there-push-for-wellington-phoenix-wleague-team-continues

So the Nix women side will be sponsored by a big name in the NZ market and not by Huawei from what i am hearing on sports radio.

Given CCM are up for sale, you'd think we are leading contenders for the expanded spot. 

Welcome "Briscoes Phoenix Ladies"

Tammy Wells has a posse

Wellington, Wollongong aiming for W-League club next season

https://thewomensgame.com/news/wellington-wollongong-aiming-for-w-league-club-next-season-552960

What is the point of having a Wellington W-League side if they're going to based in Australia? Having said that you could argue the same for the men at the moment. :)

So that best Kiwi players in NZ can play in a professional, higher level, competition than they would otherwise in NZ?

not sure this sentence makes sense..

Playing NWL in NZ or W-League in Aussie - which one gets our players better quality opposition and game time on a regular basis?

living in Oz is likely not an option for some of NZ's best NZ domiciled players

Why not? I mean, if you want to be a professional footballer, you go where the gigs are, you don't expect them to come to you.

I'd guess that most if not all of the top female footballers in NZ would jump at the change to play proper professional football no matter where they had to be based.

ok so either you are referring to those that want to be pro, or assuming all decent NZ women footballers want to be. 

best players would logically mean those good enough to play professionally, or at least the top of the NZ game. I can't imagine many of that group not wanting to get paid to play, whether it be here or in aus or further afield.

I'm not assuming anything. Those who have aspirations to play professionally and are good enough get a chance to do that rather than wasting away domestically in NZ. Those who don't are irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion no matter how good/talented they are. 

Shades of the Tim Payne trial under Rudan conversation here, isn't it? If the players want to play in the closest professional environment to NZ, then Australia and the W-League is the only option already. Having a NZ specific team, even Aussie based, would ultimately result in more New Zealand professional women footballers and provide an aspirational pathway for others.

It is relevant when there will be players who are not interested pulling up stumps in NZ for six months to live in Oz on an oily rag. That's what the Oz based team is - a different proposition to an NZ based W -League team (not that that was even a prospect but it was the original question). They aren't going to come back and be able to retire with their windfall. Is it merely an option for some players - maybe more of an option for those currently doing the pro thing