Sarah Dingle: They're the best side, male or female, that Australia has ever produced in the roundball game.

Ranked in the world's top ten, this year the Matildas became the first Australian team to win a knockout stage at the World Cup.

Now the Matildas are also the first national team in history to go on strike.

Teresa Polias: We're not asking for millions of dollars. We're asking for minimum wage to sustain our lives off the pitch to do well on it. It's as simple as that.

Sarah Dingle: In football the gender pay gap is a yawning chasm. So far this year a Socceroo playing in all matches for their country has earned about seven and a half times more than a Matilda doing the same. But in sporting terms, the women are streets ahead of the men.

Who's going to be first to hoist a World Cup for Australia, the Matildas or the Socceroos?

Heather Reid: The Matildas.

Sarah Dingle: The women say, for far too long they've had to sacrifice far too much to play for their country.

Joey Peters: So I was the vice-captain of Matildas lining up for Centrelink. Let me tell you, the captain of Matildas was as well.

Sarah Dingle: Now the poor pay had led one of the team's most experienced players to call time.

Melissa Barbieri: You get asked the question from your partner, 'At what point is enough enough?'

Sarah Dingle: Former captain Melissa Barbieri has had enough. She's retiring from the Matildas.

I'm Sarah Dingle, and on Background Briefing today, the women's strike and the beautiful game gets ugly.

It's a sunny day in the school holidays. At a field in Sydney's inner west, about 30 girls aged 8 to 15 are chasing their dreams.

This is an all-girl football development clinic. 13-year-old Annabel knows what she wants; she wants to be a Matilda.

Annabel: I would love to play for the Matildas, it's been my dream since I was four years old and my mum showed me a game of them playing and it was just amazing.

Sarah Dingle: You remember that?

Annabel: Yep, it was the first time I've ever seen someone play soccer, women play soccer.

Sarah Dingle: 14-year-old Mia has the same dream.

Mia: It's what I really want to do with my life, I really want to try and get there, that's my goal.

Sarah Dingle: To be a Matilda?

Mia: Yep.

Sarah Dingle: But already that dream has lost some of its shine.

Mia: The Matildas' World Cup campaign has been amazing, but it's not really recognised as what it should be. It's just, they went really far, they did amazing, they scored great goals, it was really good play.

Sarah Dingle: Do you worry about how much they get paid and how much female footballers get paid?

Mia: Yeah, it doesn't seem to be very much and sometimes it's like, well, if I want to do that professionally how am I gonna make a living out of it?

Sarah Dingle: It's a good question. Until now the answer has been: you can't.

There are around 20-odd contracts available for the Matildas, each lasting six months. In a full contracted year some players earn just $21,000, two-thirds of the current minimum wage. Officially, being a Matilda is just a part-time job.

In June the Matildas became Australia's most successful side ever, making it through the knockout stage of a World Cup. They did it by beating powerhouse Brazil.

Midfielder Katrina Gorry was overwhelmed.

Katrina Gorry: It was kind of a surreal moment, I just couldn't believe that I was actually there. It's always something that I've dreamt of but I didn't think it would come so soon. And just the whole atmosphere…it was a pretty awesome experience.

Sarah Dingle: Katrina Gorry had given up her second job in a café to train and play at the World Cup. But back home there was a rude awakening. Negotiations over the Matildas' pay had stalled.

In July, just after the World Cup, their contracts ran out, and so did the money, says Matilda Tameka Butt.

Tameka Butt: We normally get paid on the 7th of that month. So we were paid for that month and then the contract terminated on the 31st.

Sarah Dingle: The team's Collective Bargaining Agreement, which sets pay rates, had expired. Tameka Butt says their next payment never showed up.

Tameka Butt: Players asked questions and I'm not entirely sure who got the first response from FFA but it was through email and it just basically said that the CBA is obviously expired and so is our contracts. There wasn't any promise of the future or mention of what was going to happen.

Sarah Dingle: Then Katrina Gorry says there was a flurry of texts and calls, as the Matildas went straight from a World Cup campaign into an industrial one.

Katrina Gorry: We were on the phone to each other constantly, conference calls, messaging, we all got everyone's input and, yeah, ended up all agreeing that it was going to take a strike.

Sarah Dingle: 25-year-old Matilda Teresa Polias has a full-time job as a primary school teacher.

Teresa Polias: We're not asking for millions of dollars, we're asking for minimum wage to sustain our lives off the pitch to do well on it. It's as simple as that.

Sarah Dingle: Despite part-time pay rates, from January the Matildas went into full-time training for the World Cup. Those who had second jobs to make ends meet had to give them up.

Teresa Polias relied on the goodwill of her school to be able to take six months' unpaid leave for World Cup preparations.

Teresa Polias: It's a once in a lifetime opportunity possibly, and my workplace knew exactly how much it meant to me and I was willing to do anything to get there, and I did. Had it been another six months of prep and full-time on the same salary, it's hands down unachievable, unsustainable, and no chance I could ever have kept going.

Sarah Dingle: For those on a basic Matildas contract, that works out around $80 a day, for six months.

Teresa Polias says the players should be recognised as full-time and paid at least the minimum wage.

Teresa Polias: We just had a World Cup, we were very successful, what more do we need to show? We've shown we've got the potential to be up there with the world's best, we are, and now it's time for them to treat us like that I think.

Sarah Dingle: As part of their strike action, early last month the Matildas announced they would not get on a plane to play two games against the United States.

I meet Matilda Teresa Polias the day the team was supposed to land in the US.

Teresa Polias: You know, you've got to make big decisions sometimes for change and I think this is one of them. It hurts but it's something we've just had to do at this point in time.

Sarah Dingle: In any sport, giving up an international tour is drastic action. But the Matildas ditching two international games on the eve of Olympics qualifying rounds appeared to some to be utterly insane.

60,000 tickets had already been sold to the US v Australia matches. Football Federation of Australia's CEO, David Gallop, wasn't impressed.

David Gallop: This is an opportunity for the Matildas to play the world champions. We all celebrated their success in Canada, this was really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, 60,000 tickets have been sold. For them to get caught up in wage claims for our male professional players, to me is bizarre. They should be on that plane, they should be celebrated, and they should have been in a position where they could be paid. To me it's nonsense.

Sarah Dingle: David Gallop says what's really going on is that the Matildas are being used by the union the PFA to further the claims of male professional players.

Around the same time the Matildas' collective bargaining agreement expired, so did the Socceroos'. The national men's league, the A-League, was also in dispute with the FFA over their salary cap. But only the Matildas went on strike.

David Gallop: Effectively we've been told that unless we meet a wage claim for $120 million dollars, the bulk of which will go to male professional players in the next four-year period, then the Matildas would not be participating against the USA.

Sarah Dingle: David Gallop says the Matildas shouldn't have gone on strike.

Saying that they got caught up in something that they shouldn't have been caught up in, the Matildas I've spoken to have all been very, very certain of their reasons for doing this. Is that perhaps a bit patronising, saying they don't understand what they're doing?

David Gallop: No, I said they got caught up in something that I don't think they needed to get caught up in, Sarah.

Sarah Dingle: The Matildas hadn't been paid for months, but they held firm.

Tameka Butt says there's no confusion about what they're doing.

Tameka Butt: We've got a plan. We have a strategy and we know that what we're fighting for is fair. It's nothing crazy. I think everyone else would agree who's been made aware of the Matildas' situation and how we're unemployed and all of the above, but it's definitely collective. If anything, the men have really got behind us and are helping us through this first part of the process. We're one big team.

Sarah Dingle: If this is a collective action and the boys are behind this just as much as you, why aren't the men on strike?

Tameka Butt: I think it comes down to timing and we want to give FFA the time of day to present us with something or even have an open-minded conversation and negotiation process with us. So it's just timing. And you don't want to shut the door on FFA too early, but it has been a slow process so far. The boys are more than willing to kick it up a notch if that comes to it.

Sarah Dingle: The captain of the A-League team Adelaide United, Bruce Djite, is also a former Socceroo. I asked him why only the women went on strike.

Bruce Djite: The Matildas' scenario, the Matildas' circumstances, are much, much, much worse than the Socceroos' circumstances, both financially and when it comes to conditions. Hence the actions of the Matildas being so drastic.

Sarah Dingle: But the A-League, the Socceroos, and the Matildas were all in the same 'Whole of Game' pay dispute with the FFA.

Why don't the men from the A-League go on strike in support of the Matildas, if not for themselves?

Bruce Djite: All three parties are in it together, so of course it's something we'd do to help them, but at this minute it's nowhere near that stage yet. It's not something that's been discussed.

Sarah Dingle: The FFA says it only has around $30 million to pay the Matildas and the men.

David Gallop says for the women to get more, the men have to take less.

David Gallop: You've got to remember here what we're dealing with is three buckets of money; the Matildas, the A-League and the Socceroos. If money comes out of one bucket and goes into another there's less for that bucket.

Sarah Dingle: The FFA's approach is akin to divide and conquer.

David Gallop: The Matildas' cut of that pie is a small amount and we want to see that grow. But while ever there are calls for increases in the other two buckets, it's very difficult to make even more lift to the third bucket.

Sarah Dingle: I ask Bruce Djite if the men would give up cash for the women.

So if it comes down to it, if there's a finite pool of money, in the best interests of growing the game, would you personally be okay with the A-League dropping some of its demands so that the Matildas can get paid the minimum wage?

Bruce Djite: Well, as I explained earlier, the difficulty with that would be you're taking money from other people who deserve their income also. Then you've got to ask yourself, is it fair to take money from someone who deserves every cent that they're earning, to give money to someone who deserves more than what they're earning? That's an ethical dilemma if I've ever come across one.

Sarah Dingle: After almost a month of strike, the Matildas have suspended industrial action, saying behind closed doors CBA negotiations have taken a positive turn.

And FFA CEO David Gallop has confirmed to Background Briefing that it looks like the base Matildas contract will be lifted to be equal to the Australian minimum wage.

David Gallop: That would be for the bottom tier and there will be a higher tier as well.

Sarah Dingle: David Gallop denies that it took a strike to get a pay rise.

Sarah Dingle: Has it taken the strike to get to this, to get them to a base rate of $34,000?

David Gallop: No, disappointingly not. This is a deal that was always available and should have been accepted so the US tour went ahead.

Sarah Dingle: The Matildas dispute that claim. And without any deal signed, it's unclear at what point that extra money would kick in. David Gallop says the days of Matildas waiting tables may not be over.

Do you expect that Matildas will continue to have part-time jobs in other industries after the conclusion of this CBA, will that still be necessary?

David Gallop: Potentially. One of the things about the Matildas program, particularly in the last 12 months, is that we have invested a lot of money, over $2 million, to ensure that they are well prepared and that they have plenty of time in full-time camps, but there will be whole periods when they're not expected to be in camp and therefore I would expect some of them will look to get some part-time employment. That's a fact of life.

Sarah Dingle: The facts of life for a Socceroo are very different.

A Socceroo who was part of January's Asian Cup squad and played all Socceroo games so far this year, will have already earned more than $200,000 in 2015. That's before you include any lucrative contracts with overseas clubs. The FFA also provides the Socceroos business class flights, 5-star accommodation, travel discounts for their families and even free wifi.

The Socceroos currently rank 58th in the world, while the Matildas are 9th.

A former FFA executive, Bonita Mersiades knows where the Matildas' extra money should come from. She says the Socceroos are one of the best-paid national teams around the globe.

Bonita Mersiades: If you look at any objective measure of what the Socceroos receive now, it's hard to see that they do need an increase. Amongst international players playing for national teams, they are amongst the highest paid players around.

Sarah Dingle: Do you think that the FFA is fully focused on developing the Matildas' program, or do they always run a distant second to the A-League or the Socceroos?

Bonita Mersiades: I think generally, traditionally speaking the Matildas have run a distant second, and that's because the conventional wisdom certainly ten years ago and even before that was that the cash cow for the game was the Socceroos.

Sarah Dingle: The Socceroos can flog tens of thousands of match tickets, shift merchandise, and have an official breakfast cereal, Weet-Bix. But Bonita Mersiades thinks the Matildas could do all that too.

Bonita Mersiades: I find it curious that there's no money in women's football. Women are 52% of the population. The fastest growing team sport for girls aged 5-14 years in Australia is women's football, and then if you look at adult women as well it's also a very popular sport, both the indoor and outdoor form of the game, so I would've thought that there was scope to attract investors or sponsors or partners into the women's game who can actually say, 'This is for the development of the women's game and to help support both the W-League and the Matildas.'

Sarah Dingle: The W-League is the national women's league and, unless they're given special permission, all Matildas are required to play in it.

Tonight Sydney FC's W-League side are playing the Illawarra Stingrays. In the stands I meet women's game devotees Denise, Maggie, and Elle. They say you've got to work hard to be a Matildas fan.

Elle: I think an untapped market though is the merchandise, it's very difficult to find merchandise for the Matildas.

Maggie: I've been on the lookout for years for a Matildas scarf. I saw a picture of one in 2010 and I've been looking for one since then, and just this year for the World Cup they brought out a Matildas scarf and I bought it as soon as I found out about it, but that was something I was looking for for five years and they just weren't selling it. And I would have bought it for a lot more than they sold it for too. I think there's a market there that I think they underestimate.

It's a struggle and you still can't buy a Matildas away jersey. They sell a home and away Australia jersey, they don't sell the women's cut in the away jersey. And even up until just before the Wold Cup, if you were buying a Matildas jersey from the FFA store, it was sold as a women's cut Socceroos jersey. It's not even, like they're not marketing it to the women or for the women's team.

Sarah Dingle: They just assume that women are going to support the Socceroos?

Maggie: Exactly.

Sarah Dingle: It's a source of ongoing frustration for former Matilda Joey Peters, who says the Matildas' profitability has never really been explored.

Joey Peters: They're not marketed in the same way. Until the Matildas are put on Weet-Bix packages or have banners around the country, or are promoted and have the same merchandise as the men, until that happens, we can't actually see if the product is selling.

Sarah Dingle: Joey Peters is a former vice captain of the Matildas. She retired in 2009.

Joey Peters: Before there wasn't as much pressure because no one expected much of us. Now there is a lot more and the girls have to really earn their keep.

Sarah Dingle: She says now the women cop it coming and going; they don't get paid enough, but the little they receive is constantly under threat.

Joey Peters: Now the expectation of these girls performing and if they don't then things like funds get cut or basically clubs and the W-League and the national team comes under fire. That's always the fear. That's why I think it's so brave of them to take a stand at this time. When you threaten something, there's a real cost to everything being taken away.

Sarah Dingle: Peters remembers the days when the men got a paycheck but the Matildas got nothing.

Joey Peters: When I first started, it was in '96. I debuted for Australia. There was no payment then. We actually felt privileged at that time to have our trips paid for because that's the beautiful thing about linking our histories, that you understand what the players before you did for you and went through, and how good you have it now. 1998, I think it was the first time that I actually received a paycheck for $166, and that was for one month. I hated to break it down, but it was like $40 a week.

Sarah Dingle: Over the years, Joey Peters paid to play for her country. She had a family inheritance to sustain her, but she burned through it in a couple of years. She needed a second job but found she didn't have a lot of options in the workplace.

Joey Peters: Debuting for the Matildas when I was 17, that meant that I was very young, pretty much in my last year of school. So I didn't then go on to uni, I didn't go on to a full-time job. Without many credentials it was basically the manual labour that I was able to pick up easy work through. That was the cleaning element of it and that was interesting because you're cleaning toilets and you're playing for Australia. The other thing that I'd think about when I was cleaning toilets was Harry Kewell.

Sarah Dingle: Joey Peters and Harry Kewell go back a long way.

Joey Peters: Because he was just a year older than me. We actually started in the same academy in Sydney, there was a lot of good players in this academy and so I would follow some of their careers.

Sarah Dingle: Joey Peters was capped more than 100 times as a Matilda. She's scored 28 goals for her country and played in four World Cups.

Socceroo Harry Kewell has played for international clubs Liverpool and Galatasaray, as well as the A-League. He's a millionaire.

Joey Peters: So following his journey overseas, seeing…there's a couple of 60 Minute segments where he's showing off this garage full of Ferraris and…I can't remember his favourite car, it was like a Bentley or something. That would always stay with me, was that he ended up playing for Australia the same time that I did when he was 17 and so, again, it was just those parallels that we made. We represented our country and he went overseas and became successful, and I'd just be cleaning toilets going, 'Oh, if only I was a boy, I'd be able to not have to do this and live comfortably.'

Sarah Dingle: When there was no cleaning work, Joey Peters had to line up for the dole. She says she wasn't the only Matilda in the dole queue.

Joey Peters: Yeah, so I was the vice-captain of the Matildas lining up for Centrelink. Let me tell you, the captain of Matildas was as well. I don't know if she'd like me saying it but I say it with all due respect, that Cheryl Salisbury, our greatest ever female footballer, would be lining up.

Sarah Dingle: Joey Peters learned to appreciate the small things, like the Centrelink workers.

Joey Peters: You'd have to fill in your job diaries and be accountable to making sure you're trying to get jobs. It was really nice when I'd get a couple of people that would end up saying, 'Oh don't worry about that. If we can support you in representing our country then all the best with it and don't worry too much about this.'

Sarah Dingle: But for Joey Peters, the worst of being a Matilda and still having to clean toilets or line up for the dole, was that she began to accept the situation.

Joey Peters: As a woman, as a female footballer, yeah, you do get conditioned, you get into the culture of realising, well, I can pay for my country, but it's only women's football, so it's really not…it's not as good as men's.

Sarah Dingle: That's the exact opposite of what the game should be about, says former FFA executive Bonita Mersiades.

Bonita Mersiades: Football for me is about inclusion. That's why I spend a lot of time and a lot of my energy, I'm very committed to ensuring that one day we will have a world governing body that is governed with the highest levels of democracy, transparency, and accountability so the young girls and the young boys who play have absolute trust and confidence that the game is there for them and is served in their best interests, and not in the best interests of the people who are running it.

Sarah Dingle: Since leaving the Football Federation of Australia, Bonita Mersiades has become a whistle-blower over corruption in football. She's critical of the money the FFA spent in Australia's failed bid to win the 2022 FIFA men's World Cup.

Bonita Mersiades: I think the fact that FFA have paid half a million dollars to the Trinidad and Tobago Federation to upgrade a stadium shows a basic lack of judgment about what their priorities were. The money could have gone to the Matildas, it could have gone to the W-League, it could have gone to grassroots.

Sarah Dingle: The player's union says half a million dollars is double what it costs to lift all the Matildas to the annual minimum wage.

Woman: Melissa Barbieri, on behalf of Football Federation Victoria and our football community I'd like to thank you for your incredible contribution to football in Victoria.

Sarah Dingle: One month ago, Matilda Melissa Barbieri was inducted into the Football Federation of Victoria's Hall of Fame.

Woman: …you've pushed so many boundaries and inspired countless girls to play the game and to strive for excellence. It gives me great pleasure, both professionally and personally, to induct you to our hall of fame and to welcome you to the stage.

Sarah Dingle: Goalkeeper Melissa Barbieri has captained the Matildas and was the first woman in Australia to play in the professional men's competition, with Richmond FC.

One month ago, amidst ongoing uncertainty over money, she left the Matildas.

Melissa Barbieri: Retiring is probably the best option for me and my family. You get asked the question from your partner, 'At what point is enough enough?'

Sarah Dingle: Melissa Barbieri went to this year's World Cup, but she didn't have a six-month contract. Instead she was a casual, paid a daily allowance of $150.

Melissa Barbieri: The way that the national team program is set up is that there's only a certain amount of contracts, so anybody outside of that is basically a casual part-timer. If you go to camps you get paid, if you don't go to camps, you don't get paid.

Sarah Dingle: Was there any certainty there? I mean, I know you were getting a daily allowance but could that have stopped from one day to the next?

Melissa Barbieri: Oh yeah, if I didn't get selected into camps. I didn't make one tour where there was a six- or seven-week tour, which means I could have been paid for six or seven weeks, but I wasn't selected in that so I didn't get paid.

Sarah Dingle: Because she was only a casual, at least Melissa Barbieri always knew that when the Matildas left the World Cup, she was out of a job.

Melissa Barbieri: Not being on contract means you know where you stand really.

Sarah Dingle: Which is getting nothing.

Melissa Barbieri: Yeah, well, nothing is nothing.

Sarah Dingle: Barbieri became Matildas' captain in 2009, and led the team to victory when the Matildas won the 2010 Asian Cup, the first Australian team ever to do so.

Melissa Barbieri: Yeah, I mean, it wasn't a massive sort of fanfare when we got home. It wasn't like we had a tickertape parade or anything, but we had a lot of respect from our counterparts, especially from people at FFA, Football Federation of Australia, where they just sort of think, you know, this team's going places and we really need to back them going into the next World Cup because they can do some pretty awesome stuff.

Sarah Dingle: Then in 2012, she fell pregnant.

Melissa Barbieri: All those contracts kind of dried up really. I was told that they weren't being reinstated or renewed, whatever you want to call it.

Sarah Dingle: Did anyone say to you, 'We're not going to renew your contract because you're pregnant'?

Melissa Barbieri: No, nothing was said. We had a change of coach, so I never really got spoken to at all. It was almost like I'd fallen off the face of the Earth.

Sarah Dingle: But Barbieri was determined to fight her way back into the Matildas. When her daughter Holly was just six months old, Barbieri started again from scratch.

Melissa Barbieri: My first thought was, okay, now I have to play W-League. The W-League team in Victoria already has a goal keeper, so I'm going to have to find somewhere else to play. I was given a lifeline by Adelaide United, they got a new coach and someone had mentioned my name.

Sarah Dingle: Barbieri moved to Adelaide and took her baby with her. Her husband stayed in Victoria; the family couldn't afford for him to leave his job. Her mother flew in from time to time to help, and the Adelaide United family also helped care for Holly.

Melissa Barbieri: So during the day they would look after Holly while I trained at training. So I'd come, I'd have my pram, they'd take her from me. The first goal keeper coach that was there, he was there for a couple of weeks and he gave me some feedback. He's like, 'Oh, you just don't seem here. You seem like your mind is wandering.' And I'm like, 'Well, I do have a six-month-old at home and this is the first time I've…' Once I got it down pat that when I turned up to training, you know, I had to act like I didn't have a child.

Sarah Dingle: What was your pay in the W-League?

Melissa Barbieri: It was about $2,000.

Sarah Dingle: A year?

Melissa Barbieri: Yes, for the whole season.

Sarah Dingle: After two seasons with Adelaide United, in January Melissa Barbieri was called up for the Matildas' World Cup training camp.

Melissa Barbieri: I was even told, 'In all honesty, you probably won't go. We've got other goal keepers, but if you still want to come along and be part of the journey, then no problem.' I'm like, well, I'll make your job hard then.

Sarah Dingle: Barbieri trained full-time with the 40-strong team, then was amongst the top 23 sent to the World Cup. But if it's hard as a Matilda to get by on less than the minimum wage, it's even worse when you have a child.

Melissa Barbieri says she can't continue as a mother and a Matilda.

Melissa Barbieri: You know, being an elite athlete is very selfish at the best of times, so when you have a daughter, it's extra selfish. If I was like the USA team where I could bring my daughter with me and I could have nannies and I get paid so that I don't have to worry about everything else, the flights wouldn't be a problem or anything like that, I definitely would have considered playing longer but those sorts of things just take their toll really.

Sarah Dingle: The Matildas don't have any parental policy to support players, but then again, neither do the Socceroos.

Is there money in women's football?

Shaun Mooney: No. There's not a lot of money in men's football either, just to be honest.

Sarah Dingle: Shaun Mooney is a football journalist and author who's just published a book on the Australian club system.

Shaun Mooney: The W-League players train every day like a professional player would for the men's, and their whole salary cap is $150,000, and you'd be lucky to find a team that spends that amount. A lot of the clubs actually spend around that $60,000 figure, so they're earning very little amounts of money and giving full-time commitments during the course of the W-League.

Sarah Dingle: The men's equivalent of the W-League is the A-League. Their salary cap per club is currently $2.55 million, and that's not including international stars. Shaun Mooney says the A-League clubs were originally supposed to fund and run their own Women's League sides, but only half of them do.

Are all A-League clubs required to have a W-League club that they fund under the terms of their license?

Shaun Mooney: Originally yes, but there's been a fair amount of push back. To protect the A-League and to make it functioning, some clubs have said, 'No, we're not going to have a W-League team.'

Sarah Dingle: Instead they leave the running of Women's League sides to state football associations.

Shaun Mooney: The decision behind it, the method behind the madness so to speak is that they are looking at driving all the money behind the A-League to grow, to grow more money from TV deals, more money from corporate partners and so forth, which all comes into this bucket of FFA. And then once they get all this money then they can go and spend it on all these different things, which would be within that women's football.

Sarah Dingle: So the women have to wait?

Shaun Mooney: Well, yeah, that's the way that they see it.

Sarah Dingle: Last year, the men's clubs between them lost $17 million.

Shaun Mooney: At the start of the year there was all this talk that there were going to be five clubs profitable. Now it's only two. The only two clubs that are profitable are Western Sydney Wanderers and Melbourne Victory.

Sarah Dingle: A football administrator said to me that if you run at a loss to grow the men's game it's regarded as an investment, and if you run at a loss to do something for the women's game it's regarded as a loss.

Shaun Mooney: Correct.

Sarah Dingle: Is that how it is?

Shaun Mooney: Yes.

Sarah Dingle: And always has been?

Shaun Mooney: Yes.

Sarah Dingle: Shaun Mooney says the best-run W-League team in the country, Canberra United, is also the only W-League team run by a woman.

Heather Reid is the CEO of Capital Football, a fact that she says bothers some.

And a warning, very strong language follows.

Heather Reid: I've been very badly trolled and I continue to be trolled.

Sarah Dingle: When you're trolled, are they suspicious of you as a football administrator because you're a woman?

Heather Reid: Yeah, yeah. It's totally that. I'm a c*** of a CEO, I'm a f***ing lezzo, I'm all sorts of things and I do nothing for the men's game and I misappropriate funds by taking it from the men's and giving it to the women's.

Sarah Dingle: In fact Canberra United doesn't have a men's team. The FFA hasn't granted Canberra an A-League licence. Instead Heather Reid focuses on her W-League team, which has a small budget, but, unlike the A-League, it breaks even.

Heather Reid: I run Canberra United on a budget of around about $300,000, with support from the ACT government, sponsors, gate receipts, et cetera.

Sarah Dingle: She says the A-League clubs cost around 30 times that amount.

Heather Reid: Well, the A-League clubs, indeed, are running $8 million, $10 million businesses, and for whatever reason they're losing money. That might be a business model that some of the owners like. On the other hand it might just be poor management.

Sarah Dingle: In the capital, the Canberra United women's side has a strong following. Every week, Heather Reid sends players to schools and runs a press conference. She says a lot more could be done to sell the Matildas.

Heather Reid: I think a lot more can be done. A lot more can be done in a positive way in terms of the marketing, and this particularly comes through the W-League more so than the Matildas. We had marketing materials in the first two seasons of the W-League. Personally, I don't think it was very appropriate stuff that was produced, but at least there were posters, there were promotions through Westfields, there was…

Sarah Dingle: What was produced? What did you find inappropriate?

Heather Reid: There were posters that had images of females, you know, we had our eight clubs, each had their representative go off to do a photo shoot, and I think to me it was far too sexualised. It was too girly. There was a series of posters in one season that actually looked like they were disco chicks on the dance floor. I don't think that's necessary these days.

Sarah Dingle: It's halftime at the Sydney FC W-League game in Wollongong. I'm sitting with Denise, Maggie and Elle.

How often do you guys come to Sydney FC games?

Maggie: All the home games, we're at every home game and the away games if we can.

Denise: Canberra, central coast, Newcastle, Adelaide this year.

Sarah Dingle: The fans say their W-League team is being undersold.

Denise: I feel like even with this game it was not really advertised that the girls were playing. Like, we got…it was like a group event thing on Facebook that said the girls are playing as the opener to the men. And we were like, oh, this is awesome. But you go and buy the ticket and it doesn't say anything about the girls playing, it's all about the men.

Sarah Dingle: Denise pays for a W-League membership, even though she doesn't have to, because she wants the club to know that the women's game counts.

Denise: That's why personally I make a point of also getting the W-League membership. You get the Sydney FC membership…you get an A-League membership and you get free entry to the W-League games. I make the point of still getting the W-League membership because I want the team to know and the club to know that I'm going for the women as well.

Sarah Dingle: Sydney FC fans put their money where their mouth is. After the Matildas went on strike, Sydney FC fans put out a call to sponsor one of their own W-League players. Dozens donated, including Liam.

Liam: I chipped in $100, and one of my friends was the bloke that started the idea, I think it's fantastic. It gives the girls a chance, gives them extra money and they get sponsored, so it's good.

Sarah Dingle: In a few weeks fans raised enough money to sponsor not one but three W-League players.

Both Liam and his friend Noel supported the Matildas' strike.

Liam: I think Gallop said that men would have to take from their bucket to fill the female's buckets. That's a good idea which if I were a male player I would probably go for, but that's for the men and the women to decide.

Noel: I think the women should make whatever money they need to. They represented our country at the last few World Cups, they've performed exceptionally well.

Sarah Dingle: And if a World Cup is the ultimate goal in football, executive Heather Reid knows who she backs.

Who's going to be first to hoist a World Cup for Australia, the Matildas or the Socceroos?

Heather Reid: The Matildas. I think the Matildas simply because I think we're a little bit further along the development line. I think the women's game has a lot more capacity for development and growth and it does come back to very early on in our conversation, Sarah, about putting more into the women's program if we had full-time players and they were able to focus purely on their football, then we would produce better football players, better technicians, smarter, more clever players, et cetera, and I think we could definitely match it with the powerhouses of Germany, USA and Japan.

Sarah Dingle: Background Briefing's co-ordinating producer is Linda McGinness, research by Anna Whitfeld, technical production by Andrei Shabunov, the executive producer is Wendy Carlisle, and I'm Sarah Dingle.

We're on Twitter at @BackgroundBrief, and my handle is @SarahDingleABC.