Talk:Wikinews interviews academic Steve Redhead about Australian women's soccer

Latest comment: 10 years ago by Pi zero in topic Review of revision 2218533 [Passed]

Journalist notes

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I sent off questions to about 15 different people, including 4 women's sport bloggers, 1 journal, 5 academics and people various soccer federations in Australia. I received one response. It has been sent to scoop. The background knowledge from the questions is based on my PhD work knowledge on Australia's sporting culture. I discussed some of these with pi zero on scoop when I was trying to write the questions as neutrally as possible. This includes the fact that Australia has historically used sports as a form of gender normalizing female behavior. For example, women in netball and field hockey wear skirts. At the same time, they were actively discouraged or barred from participating in other sports.

I researched other parts to confirm things I already suspected, including levels of media coverage. (The Australian government has written reports on this topic which has found that women's sports get much less coverage than men's, and they have tried to create legislative solutions to enhancing the levels of coverage for women, which has led to additional airtime for women on SBS and ABC.) I did this on Newsbank Australia, with a search I did yesterday. The following results table gives a clue.

Global Global Global Global Global Global Australia Australia Australia Australia Australia
Matildas Matilda's Socceroos Tim Cahill Sally Shippard Lisa De Vanna Matildas Socceroos Tim Cahill Sally Shipard Lisa De Vanna
2013 616 115 7,025 1,221 17 102 609 6,959 1,318 17 101
2012 782 138 4,973 1,175 76 79 763 4,937 1,085 76 79
2011 1,111 202 6,161 2,055 132 246 1,097 6,083 1,783 132 244
2010 819 186 10,973 3,781 58 86 810 10,820 3,340 58 84
2009 635 142 8,192 2,584 17 64 633 8,126 2,127 17 64
2008 929 214 7,930 1,927 11 73 924 7,870 1,730 11 73
2007 919 125 7,538 1,823 59 169 908 7,419 1,598 59 157
2006 718 126 14,659 3,378 101 36 716 14,325 2,998 101 36
2005 453 112 7,133 1,532 35 17 448 7,020 1,350 35 17
2004 783 105 2,909 1,205 75 90 753 2,871 996 75 90
2003 548 122 2,291 124 13 23 539 2,213 191 13 23
2002 365 70 1,969 137 16 360 1,934 167 1 16
2001 236 55 4,436 78 1 4 234 4,339 138 4

I know the A-League is not making money. I've read about this extensively in the past, and had conversations with sport professionals in Australia. This is widely acknowledged, and is why one W-League team folded. Soccer is the fourth most popular football code in Australia by spectatorship. The ANZ Championship, the national professional netball league, is profitable. It is one of the few profitable women's teams in the world.

[http://www.ausport.gov.au/supporting/funding/grants_and_scholarships/grant_funding_report?FundingCategory=&RecipientName=&RecipientType=Individual&RecipientState=&FinancialYear=2013&Submit=Filter

DAS grants stand for direct athlete scholarships.]  If you make enough money play sports, you don't generally need one. But just to be sure, I found a list of all the members of the Socceroos and Matildas, and I went through the men's team. None have scholarships.  I got halfway through the women's team.  The table below shows some of that. 
Type No. Recipient Name Recipient Type Home State Financial Year Funding Amount
DAS 716 Sally Shipard Individual ACT 2012 / 2013 $2,000.00
DAS 722 Samantha Kerr Individual WA 2012 / 2013 $3,000.00
SLGSfW 95 Sally Shipard Individual ACT 2013 / 2014 $5,000.00
DAS 480 Kyah Simon Individual NSW 2012 / 2013 $3,000.00
DAS 613 Michelle Heyman Individual ACT 2012 / 2013 $4,000.00
DAS 509 Lisa de Vanna Individual WA 2012 / 2013 $3,000.00
DAS 45 Amy Chapman Individual QLD 2012 / 2013 $7,437.50
DAS 790 Tameka Butt Individual QLD 2012 / 2013 $2,000.00
DAS 804 Teresa Polias Individual NSW 2012 / 2013 $7,437.50
DAS 454 Katrina Gorry Individual QLD 2012 / 2013 $4,000.00
DAS 470 Kim Carroll Individual QLD 2012 / 2013 $4,000.00
DAS 181 Clare Polkinghorne Individual QLD 2012 / 2013 $4,000.00
DAS 802 Teigen Allen Individual NSW 2012 / 2013 $4,000.00

I checked the FIFA rankings to verify them.

--LauraHale (talk) 14:36, 7 December 2013 (UTC)Reply
COI type statement: I should probably put in a disclaimer that this story is a way of trying to socially responsibly deal with some discussions I was involved on Wikipedia in relation to Australia national association football team where I have claimed the article is not neutral. I consulted with Pi zero and another accredited report to try to make sure my questions were not incredibly leading and to try to make them more neutral. --LauraHale (talk) 15:21, 7 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Review of revision 2218533 [Passed]

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