Ex player Robbie Slater has slammed the “royal treatment” of the Australia women’s football team in favour of their male counterparts, in a role reversal to many case studies around the world.
Slater, who’s now a sports commentator but did play for teams like Blackburn Rovers, West Ham United, Southampton and Wolves in his time, called out TV station Network 10 for delegating a recent Socceroos match to their streaming service as opposed to showing it on terrestrial TV.
There, Graham Arnold's side clinched a 2-0 victory over Bangladesh in a World Cup qualifier, but many fans were left frustrated that they couldn't view the game as a result of it being behind a paywall on Paramount Plus.
That decision was one Slater has labelled a “disgrace”, but he did go one step further in comparing that to the treatment the women’s team receives.
“I had calls from people who wanted to watch the game but couldn’t. The game should have been on 10’s main channel, or at the very least on 10 Bold or 10 Peach,” he wrote in a column for the Herald Sun.
“However, with the Matildas it’s a completely different story. They get the royal treatment from 10 even for friendly games as we saw with the two-match series against China,” he said.
Slater, who picked up over 40 caps for Australia as a player then explained how his outrage surfaced namely because the Socceroos’ game “actually meant something.”
“FA (Football Australia) must do what’s right for the game in Australia as the guardians of the sport in this country,” he continued.
“But by allowing Network 10 to continue to treat the Australian football community with contempt, FA isn’t doing what’s right for the sport.
“While FA might not get as much money for selling the Socceroos and Matildas broadcast rights to another network, in the long-term football will be better off in Australia.
“The problem is the FA can’t see that at the moment, and is seemingly happy to accept Network 10’s ugly treatment of the Socceroos and our domestic competitions so long as the price is right.”
