Players from the Central Coast Mariners' A-League Women team say they were blindsided by the announcement that the club's new owner, Total Soccer Growth Holdings (TSG), did not include the women's program in its acquisition.
Earlier this week, TSG was announced as the new majority shareholder of the Gosford-based club after former owner Mike Charlesworth returned his license to the Australian Professional Leagues (APL) in January.
However, in a letter on the club's website, TSG owner Ruben Gnanalingam, the Malaysian businessman whose family's net worth is over $3 billion, said he was only investing in the men's team and the club's youth academies.
"The A-League Women's team is not part of this acquisition," Gnanalingam wrote. "Professional women's football is not an area we have existing expertise in, and we did not think it would be right to take on that responsibility without being confident we could do it properly.
"The APL is actively working to find a partner for the women's team, with the aim of enabling them to participate in the 2026-27 season. We are supportive of that process and are assisting as best we can."
TSG, who own Championship side Queens Park Rangers (QPR), currently have a women's team competing in the semi-professional fourth tier of English football.
TSG purchased the Mariners' women's license as part of their broader acquisition of the club for an unknown fee, but never intended to run the program itself. Instead, they have handed responsibility to the APL to secure a separate investor for the A-League Women team before an internal deadline of July 31.
The news has come as a shock to members of the Mariners' women's side who won the A-League Women's championship title in 2024-25.
Team captain Taren King was told about the decision just 15 minutes before the public announcement, and only because head coach Kory Babington called to let her know he had been released by the club.
"They left it really last-minute to tell the coach of the team, and the rest of the girls were none the wiser," King told ESPN. "They didn't even know Kory didn't have a job anymore; they were finding out on the fan pages on Instagram and putting it in the chat being like, 'Is this legit?'
"I couldn't believe it. I thought he was calling to let me know he'd officially been given the job and that he was trying to organise the team, [but] this has been a slap in the face for him, especially considering he did a lot for us last season.
"We haven't actually heard anything from the club, still. Our manager sent us an email saying the CEO would like to have a meeting next Wednesday, but other than that, we haven't heard anything.
"They're still looking for a buyer, but we're not sure yet. A lot of us were hoping to be back at the Mariners, that was our intent. I haven't even thought about playing for another team, even though I don't have a contract. So all of us are in limbo about whether there will be a team next year and possibly starting to seek out other options."
Defender Liz Grey found out alongside all other members of the squad in the team's group chat just minutes before the official announcement was released.
"There were no direct comms from the club, any officials; Kory the coach didn't know anything about it either, so it was all just thrown upon everybody," she told ESPN.
"At first, I was just shocked, and then I was angry. It's basic 101 that you let your employees know about something big happening before anybody else and offer reassurance and a pathway. Basic things. But there was none of that.
"And then it was like, well, what does this mean for individual players' futures? Is there a club we can go to? Some players are on multiple-year contracts, so for them it's like, well, am I here? Do I need to look somewhere else?
"We don't want to leave. We don't want to separate as a group. The thought of going to another club, when what we had as a playing group was so special, and despite all the odds we did quite well ... it's just a real shock and a shame."
Switzerland international Lorena Baumann found out while travelling overseas and only realised the women's team wasn't included in TSG's purchase after reading the article posted on the club's own website.
"We were told 15 minutes beforehand that the club was going to announce some news, and I was like 'Oh, it's probably going to be positive, because otherwise they would have mentioned something'," Baumann told ESPN.
"But then I read the article and had to scroll all the way down until I found out that they're not going to buy the women's team. Even from the communications, every single post I saw was celebrating the Mariners finding a new owner, but there was never a mention about the women's team.
"I'm shocked that the APL would allow something like that. I understand from a business point of view that they wanted an owner for some parts, but the fact that you can just cut the women's team and be fine with it -- even proud about finding a new owner -- is quite poor.
"Obviously I don't have to play in Australia, I could go somewhere else. But I really like Australian soccer, so I feel like to not come back to something that was really good and that had lots of potential, just because someone doesn't want to support women's sports, is really sad."
Exactly how this new arrangement will work is unclear. The bundled nature of the A-Leagues' licenses means that while a separate investor could have control over football operations such as squads, staff, and salaries, they may ultimately still be subject to TSG's broader commercial and strategic decisions. But it's understood the level of commercial autonomy and scope of decision-making for any prospective investors will be negotiated as part of a separate, bespoke agreement.
APL CEO Steve Rosich told ESPN that they are "particularly advanced with one party" wanting to invest in the Mariners' A-League Women side, but did not provide a timeline on those discussions.
When asked whether the APL would financially support the women's team temporarily if an investor is unable to be secured by the deadline -- like they did with the men's team in the six months preceding this acquisition -- he said: "We'll have to look at that in the context of where conversations are at, so it's too early to have a definitive view."
"We see a really strong future for the women's game across Australia and New Zealand," Rosich told ESPN. "Our clubs that are investing in this space are doing it for good strategic reasons and making progress, and we think having the potential to have specific investment in the women's game is a good thing, and this is a good test case for that."
Central Coast isn't the only club whose women's team has been in limbo for the past year. Alongside Western United, whose application to re-join the A-Leagues was rejected by Football Australia after their owners were put into receivership, Canberra United are still without an owner after two seasons, with Rosich confirming the APL are currently engaged with two separate parties to purchase the team from Capital Football.
At the time of writing, the intention is for that owner to take over the women's license for the 2026-27 season, followed by the introduction of a men's license "at an agreed time in future." Rosich said the APL are "equally optimistic" of a new owner being in place "in the very near term."
This uncertain future for multiple A-League Women teams is having a direct impact on players, with career confidence dropping to record low levels, even lower than during the COVID pandemic.
In an end-of-season survey conducted by the players' union, 57% of players said they were "not at all confident" or only "slightly confident" in the direction and control of their football careers.
Just under half the players (41%) said they did not agree that the overall league environment and conditions allows them to develop to their full potential, while the percentage of players who were "not at all secure" financially has steadily increased over the past four seasons.
"It just shows no commitment to growing women's football or investing in it to create a full-time professional career for these girls," Grey said.
"The way I see it, if you plant a flower in a garden-bed and don't give it any water or sun, nothing is going to happen. It's the same for women's sport: you need to water it, you need to invest in it -- the players, the facilities, resources, staff, marketing -- but if you don't do that, of course you won't see the fruits of your labor.
"It's sad that we haven't jumped on the momentum we had from the Women's World Cup and the Asian Cup through the Matildas, because I feel like that was the wave we should have caught and it feels like the APL just completely ignored it.
"My fear is that no one buys the Mariners' women's team. I fear for my teammates who may not have a club to go to next year. It's a really sad thing, and I hope the APL can reflect and realise that maybe they've made a mistake here, and they should have fought harder for the women's program.
"At the end of the day, it just feels like sexism in the workplace and it's just not good enough."
The A-Leagues' current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) ends on Tuesday, with no clear picture of what lies ahead for either the Mariners' A-League Women team or the competition more broadly.
"I've joked that maybe this is forced retirement for me," King said. "If I don't get lucky enough to pick up a contract somewhere else, then I don't really know what happens.
"It's sad to think that the back-end of your career is out of your hands. I'm thinking of the others going through tough times as well, I know there's a number of other girls in the Mariners squad that would be really stressed right now, especially those who got injured last year.
"It has crossed my mind, especially in these last couple of days, that I don't know how long the A-Leagues will last at this rate.
"I've been in the meetings about the CBA negotiations that have been going for the last little while, I've been in the boardrooms with the guys at the APL and chatting about these things. It's extremely disappointing that they're sitting in those rooms talking to us about the vision of the A-League Women, how we're a massive priority for them, but then they turn around and slap us with the same stick every time.
"Everybody can talk the talk, but whether they can walk the walk is a different story. We need to see change through action rather than all these big ideas and plans that don't necessarily have a pathway to get there. They love to claim they have our best interests at heart, and they're trying to do the right thing for the game ... but I'm yet to see it."