THE Sydney Swans and GWS Giants are both supporting the proposed national AFL competition for women but won’t be fielding foundation teams in the planned 2017 season.

“We are really supportive of the proposed AFL national women’s competition,’’ Swans CEO Andrew Ireland said.

“If we have our own women’s team, we want to do it absolutely right. There is still a lot of information we need to see from the AFL and we will take our time to assess all of that and the tender documents.

“There are potentially some great opportunities to integrate a female program through the QBE Sydney Swans Academy.

“But that is just one of the many things we need to consider as the competition starts to take shape over the next 12 months.”

The Giants have been strong supporters of women’s football through the Auburn Giants who were the first predominantly Muslim women’s AFL team in Australia.

In his previous job at the AFL GWS boss David Matthews was also heavily involved in promoting the growth of the women’s game but with his fledgling club still finding its feet financially the prospect of putting a team in the National Women’s competition is still years away.

“The critical thing for us is the financial model,” Matthews said.

“As a young club we have our own challenges to build up our own revenue and fund a team in the National AFL competition that’s competitive across 18 clubs.

“We have goodwill towards the women’s competition but haven’t got the resources yet. We are strong supporters of the concept and we have been for a long time.

“We’ve seen that already on a smaller scale with the Auburn Giants even though they aren’t a professional club. We’re waiting on detail on format and funding.”

media_camera GWS’s Women's 9s match before the Collingwood-GWS game this year. Picture: George Salpigtidis

Matthews said the club would also look at a partnership with NSWAFL and or the Swans.

“We collaborate with the Swans on the NEAFL, on Academies and the aspiration the AFL has for the game in NSW and if this seen as another development plank,” Matthews said.

“We certainly couldn’t do it on our own and we’d require like a lot of clubs investment from the AFL.”

The initial competition looks likely to have four teams from Victoria and one each from Queensland and Western Australia.

As many as eight Victorian clubs have shown interest including Melbourne, Western Bulldogs, Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond, Essendon, Geelong and St Kilda.

The proposed competition would run between March and May 2017.

Matthews believes NSW has the talent required to field a team.

“The fastest way to get it going would be to put a team in place,” Matthews said.

“We’ve expanded the men’s competition off basically a Victorian playing base and there is no reason why that can’t work with the women’s competition.”