MELBOURNE: Australia’s top sports federations on Monday pledged to achieve gender equality in pay for athletes and administrators as part of a blueprint issued by a local advocacy group.

The CEOs of Cricket Australia, the National Rugby League and Football Federation Australia, have signed up to the ‘Pathway to Pay Equality’ report by the Male Champions of Change Institute (MCC), which details a milestone-based approach to achieving pay equity between male and female athletes.

Other signatories include Golf Australia, Swimming Australia and Tennis Australia, which organises the Australian Open Grand Slam.

“Many of our elite women athletes are among the most successful on the world stage,” Kate Palmer, CEO of the federal government’s sports funding agency Sport Australia, said in a media release from the MCC on Mon­day. “We are a sports-loving nation, we are championing a system-wide reset in the way we support, pay and reward our female athletes. The benefits to our economy, our community and our athletes will be exponential.”

Having largely neglected women’s sport for decades, a number of Australia’s major federations have made significant investments in recent years, establishing professional leagues in cricket, soccer and Australian Rules football.

The initiatives have opened up pathways to more full-time careers in women’s sport, while hiking salaries from a low base.

But most female athletes still earn a fraction of their male counterparts.

Tennis legend Billie Jean King is a high-profile supporter of the new initiative.

“It is very heartening to see CEOs across major sports come together to achieve gender equality and pay equality in sport,” she said. “The idea of activating the entire sports eco-system to hasten change is an approach that could be considered and replicated throughout the world.”

Cricket Australia gave contracted women the same base hourly pay rate as men in the five-year collective bargaining agreement struck in 2017, but women play far less cricket.

The governing body estimated that contracted female cricketers would earn a minimum annual retainer of A$87,609 (US62,600) during the final year of the pay deal in 2021-22, while men would earn over A$313,000.

Cricket Australia’s ground-breaking 2017 pay deal introduced an equal base rate of pay for male and female elite cricketers for the first time, with that experience drawn upon to develop the Pathway to Pay Equality report.

“We want our women’s elite teams to help shape the brand of cricket, drive the game’s growth and continue to deliver international success,” said CA chief Kevin Roberts. “On every measure they have done this as athletes and ambassadors. There is no question they deserve pay parity and we developed a model to achieve this.”

Minimum annual player contracts in the W-League, Australia’s top women’s soccer competition, were A$12,287, less than a fifth of the minimum salaries enjoyed by players in the men’s A-League (A$64,113).

Tennis Australia offers equal prize-money at the Australian Open in keeping with the other three Grand Slams.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2019