Mentors to help keep women in the game

THE AFL has lost, and continues to lose, some of its best and brightest talent because women have felt inhibited, disrespected and undervalued by male counterparts.

To help tackle the problem, the league has created a mentoring program that will match 50 women striving to flourish in football jobs with 50 established figures who will guide them over 12 months.

It is hoped the most senior figures in the game - AFL commissioners, club chief executives and board members - will volunteer to share their expertise.

Sam Mostyn, who in 2005 became the first woman to join the AFL Commission; Justice Linda Dessau, who became the league's second female commissioner in 2008; and other AFL bosses, including chief executive Andrew Demetriou, heard at a forum last year of challenges encountered by women working in football.

''There was a lot of fairly poor treatment of women across the industry, of those who wanted to be rising in the ranks alongside men,'' Ms Mostyn told The Age yesterday.

''There were issues of being underpaid, lack of respect in some cases, or an assumption that they didn't really want a career in footy, that it was just an interesting thing to be doing, as opposed to the idea that these were jobs and people that needed to be taken very seriously.

''Many women told us that despite wanting to work in the industry, despite demonstrating their skills, they just weren't making any progress, they weren't getting into senior ranks.''

The AFL executive's only female member, human resources manager Christina Ogg, is driving the new pilot program. She hopes first meetings between the mentors and their charges will be held by the end of June.