Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced plans to invest $200 million in the country’s women’s sports infrastructure, meeting a funding plea made by Australian soccer captain Sam Kerr following the Matildas’ run to the World Cup semifinals.
The $200 million will be invested through the Australian government’s Play Our Way program to ensure that girls and women athletes in the country have their own facilities and gear instead of sharing with men’s teams. The funding will be available to all sports in Australia, where the women’s soccer team recently set broadcast viewership records as it co-hosted the Women’s World Cup alongside New Zealand in the highest-attended WWC of all time.
“Too often women and girls are changing in men’s bathrooms, wearing hand-me-down boys uniforms, playing with men’s equipment on poor fields that boys’ teams wouldn’t train on,” Australia’s Sports Minister Anika Wells said following the funding announcement.
Allotted funding will be determined by an expert advisory panel formed by the government, and applications to apply for funding will open in early 2024, according to the Australian Broadcast Corporation. Kerr said, “We need funding in our grassroots. We need funding everywhere,” after Australia’s World Cup semifinals loss to England on Wednesday.
“The Matildas have given us a moment of national inspiration,” Albanese said Friday. “This is about seizing that opportunity for the next generation, investing in community sporting facilities for women and girls around Australia.”
