In Victorian men’s elite state football, four main competitions exist for clubs to chase glory each year: PS4 NPL, Dockerty Cup, FFA Cup and the NPL finals series.
Add the Community Shield and you have five pieces of silverware achievable throughout the season.
For women, however, teams can only earn two trophies via league and cup competitions.
While the recent Bass Strait Cup between Victoria and Tasmania wasn’t a club competition, it provided an added opportunity for players away from the status quo, and was well received by participants and fans at the ground and on social media.
“Any time you represent your state, country, or [play] any type of representative football, that’s motivation in itself,” coach Shaun Ontong said of the occasion.
While a Community Shield between the reigning league and cup winner could easily be implemented to usher in a new women’s season, the response to the game between two states also indicated there could be enough interest at a club level for a state play-off competition for national bragging rights.
An FFA Cup would be implausible due to the landscape of women’s football, with some players representing a state league team, W-League side and even an overseas club all in the space of a single year.
However, one idea could be to hold a league play-off similar to the men’s national NPL finals, where either the top placed team or grand final winner of each member federation faces off against each other in a knockout format.
While logistics and finances would make it difficult to emulate the men’s competition in its entirety, a short tournament in a single location could be a potential compromise.
It would reduce travel across associated with playing across various states over a prolonged period of time.
For example, matches could commence at a quarter-final stage between one representative from each of eight member federations, drawn out at random or via a seeding process, with each round a few days apart throughout the week.
While this is just one possible suggestion, and currently some member federations are in a transitional period with the implementation and administration of the National Premier Leagues, the possibility of integrating the state leagues into a national competition in the future should be considered.
At the very least, it could offer clubs and players the chance to earn a tag of best in the country.