Aug 11, 2026 · 1 hr 15 min · 11 segments
Poletti and Burke are back, and there is a lot to catch up on. We start with the ongoing negotiations over the Collective Bargaining Agreement, discuss Western United's legacy, our key transfer and…
and football world has left us no shortage of things to talk about because why would it we never get a break around here it's always go go go go go with everything to do with women's football and we're gonna we're gonna do things a little bit out of order um for the news and we're not really going to touch on everything just because so much has happened we're going to just hit the key talking points um of what we need to discuss uh we're going to start with the ongoing cba Can we call it a dispute between the APL and the PFA? It's something.
Disagreements.
The ongoing negotiations between, you know, the Professional Footballers Australia and the Australian Professional Leagues who run the A-Leagues.
And obviously the Players Union being the PFA.
Sort of...
So what we know is they'd moved away from the negotiating table.
But they didn't give the players a chance to look at it first.
They went straight to the media to put the offer on the table, which included 52 of the 53 items being agreed in principle.
that had been put forward between the PFA and the APL the updated position of the APL was to address the remaining unresolved item by proposing a significant increase to the maximum salary cap for the A-League women as well as further provisions for the A-League men and A-League women players to have a direct say in the strategic direction of the professional game
that salary cap increase was
41% to $900,000 that 41% increase coming from the previous season's salary cap of $640,000 and an increase on the previous offer of $775,000 pro rata amounts associated with A-League women contracts beyond 38 weeks and the allocation of a marquee player fund for up to three players to be initiated for the 26-27 season enhancements and entitlements to maternity and paternity arrangements for implementation for the upcoming season as well as part of the apl's commitment to the strategic direction and growth of the game it has committed to setting a pathway to full-time professionalism for a league women players with the aim of having a mutually agreed plan in place within 12 months and made an offer for the pfa and apl to commence negotiations on a longer term model for agreement by march 2027 so the cba would only be for one year if the pfa were to agree to it before everyone's back at the negotiating table again uh there was a whole lot of other stuff um you know in the official media release and articles that were written by various outlets but those are sort of the key talking points to come out of it in response to that uh pfa chief executive beau bush uh released uh i'm only going to talk a little bit to the the statement that he released uh the pfa this afternoon received correspondence from the apl in relation to the a league's collective bargaining agreement rather than allowing the players a reasonable opportunity to fully consider it the apl has instead immediately announced it in the media revealing a fundamental misunderstanding of how good faith bargaining works the players deserve the respect of hearing directly about proposals that affect their careers or genuine process rather than reading about them in the media the players overwhelmingly rejected the APL's previous final offer due to a fundamental lack of trust that it would have secured the league's future after years of mismanagement and that the APL's conduct continued to erode that trust we will now carefully review the APL's letters and will consider its contents with our members in the coming days any new proposal will only be accepted by the players if it promises genuine transformation so both sides still appear to be at loggerheads over the situation um are we gonna see industrial action i.e a strike?
i'll back them if they want to hi listen both of my parents worked in unions i'm never not gonna never not gonna support a strike um
this was this was well established law on the first episode of the dub cast yes um because you had just watched um last act of the springfield where you know yes where they went on strike we this is where this is well coded dub cast law
if you don't know this about me you don't know anything about me at all i fear um Obviously, I would rather it not come to that.
I think everyone would rather it not come to that.
No one wants to not be able to really do their job.
They want to play football.
That's the whole point.
Let them.
Yeah, the salary cap at $900,000.
Just put it at a million.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Like, what is this? You're right there.
and football world has left us no shortage of things to talk about because why would it we never get a break around here it's always go go go go go with everything to do with women's football and we're gonna we're gonna do things a little bit out of order um for the news and we're not really going to touch on everything just because so much has happened we're going to just hit the key talking points um of what we need to discuss uh we're going to start with the ongoing cba Can we call it a dispute between the APL and the PFA? It's something.
Disagreements.
The ongoing negotiations between, you know, the Professional Footballers Australia and the Australian Professional Leagues who run the A-Leagues.
And obviously the Players Union being the PFA.
Sort of...
So what we know is they'd moved away from the negotiating table.
But they didn't give the players a chance to look at it first.
They went straight to the media to put the offer on the table, which included 52 of the 53 items being agreed in principle.
that had been put forward between the PFA and the APL the updated position of the APL was to address the remaining unresolved item by proposing a significant increase to the maximum salary cap for the A-League women as well as further provisions for the A-League men and A-League women players to have a direct say in the strategic direction of the professional game
that salary cap increase was
41% to $900,000 that 41% increase coming from the previous season's salary cap of $640,000 and an increase on the previous offer of $775,000 pro rata amounts associated with A-League women contracts beyond 38 weeks and the allocation of a marquee player fund for up to three players to be initiated for the 26-27 season enhancements and entitlements to maternity and paternity arrangements for implementation for the upcoming season as well as part of the apl's commitment to the strategic direction and growth of the game it has committed to setting a pathway to full-time professionalism for a league women players with the aim of having a mutually agreed plan in place within 12 months and made an offer for the pfa and apl to commence negotiations on a longer term model for agreement by march 2027 so the cba would only be for one year if the pfa were to agree to it before everyone's back at the negotiating table again uh there was a whole lot of other stuff um you know in the official media release and articles that were written by various outlets but those are sort of the key talking points to come out of it in response to that uh pfa chief executive beau bush uh released uh i'm only going to talk a little bit to the the statement that he released uh the pfa this afternoon received correspondence from the apl in relation to the a league's collective bargaining agreement rather than allowing the players a reasonable opportunity to fully consider it the apl has instead immediately announced it in the media revealing a fundamental misunderstanding of how good faith bargaining works the players deserve the respect of hearing directly about proposals that affect their careers or genuine process rather than reading about them in the media the players overwhelmingly rejected the APL's previous final offer due to a fundamental lack of trust that it would have secured the league's future after years of mismanagement and that the APL's conduct continued to erode that trust we will now carefully review the APL's letters and will consider its contents with our members in the coming days any new proposal will only be accepted by the players if it promises genuine transformation so both sides still appear to be at loggerheads over the situation um are we gonna see industrial action i.e a strike?
i'll back them if they want to hi listen both of my parents worked in unions i'm never not gonna never not gonna support a strike um
this was this was well established law on the first episode of the dub cast yes um because you had just watched um last act of the springfield where you know yes where they went on strike we this is where this is well coded dub cast law
if you don't know this about me you don't know anything about me at all i fear um Obviously, I would rather it not come to that.
I think everyone would rather it not come to that.
No one wants to not be able to really do their job.
They want to play football.
That's the whole point.
Let them.
Yeah, the salary cap at $900,000.
Just put it at a million.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Like, what is this? You're right there.
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