The bitter pay dispute that has split Australian professional football has prompted the intervention of A-League supporters who are having their say on the matter, and putting their money where their mouth is.

Fans of Sydney FC reacted to the news of the Matildas' withdrawal from a two-game friendly tour of the US last week with frustration over the state of pay for female footballers. Through a supporter group website, the fans created an online donation to help fund the club's W-League team with the initial goal raising enough money to sponsor a player for the season.

Sponsorship: Sydney FC's W-League players, such as Matildas star Kyah Simon, stand to benefit from the Cove's efforts. Credit:AP

What they didn't expect was to achieve that within a matter of days.



"The Matildas have been in the news quite a bit about the pay dispute and not being funded. We thought about it and thought that we can't support the Matildas by funding money but we can definitely support our own Sky Blue girls," spokesman Steve Southworth said.



The supporter group, The Cove, have raised more than $5500 since Saturday and are on track to sponsor two of the club's players this season. Within just four hours of their donations going live, more than $1600 was raised by fans with one person donating $250 to sponsor a W-League player. In total, 86 individual payments were made to the cause listed on the supporter group website.

The costs for corporate sponsorships of players is usually $4400 but the club agreed to reduce it to $3300 for the supporter group, who will not receive any of the associated benefits such as match tickets.