‘It's pressure to not let people down': Lydia Williams makes leap from goalline to boardroom

The Guardian

14-02-2025

With a cast covering her surgically repaired right wrist, the transformation of Lydia Williams has begun. From the penalty box to Australian sport's most senior boardroom, the former Matildas goalkeeper is now facing the pressures of a new high-performance environment.
'It's pressure to not let people down,' Williams says. 'The pressure to make sure that I do whatever I can, to make sure that people can rely on me – that's been my role as a goalkeeper, I have to do my job so everyone else can perform.'
This week the 36-year-old Noongar woman was appointed a director of the Australian Sports Commission (ASC), which is responsible for supporting high-performance and participation programs, and overseeing public funding across 70 different sports. She is the youngest person on the board, and one of two people with First Nations backgrounds alongside public servant Selwyn Button.
'In the world of social media and how it's all going, that art of listening – actually having a conversation – is starting to get a little bit lost,' Williams says. 'So it's important now more than ever in organisations to do that and have that diversity.'
Her appointment is the latest step in plans by the federal government under sport minister Anika Wells to modernise Australia's sporting sector. It has adopted a policy of threatening to pull funding unless sporting organisations achieve gender equity on boards, and has appointed former sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins as chair of the ASC.
Williams has spent recent years exploring off-field opportunities, including writing a book, and pursuing corporate speaking opportunities. Together with her long-term advocacy within players' union Professional Footballers Australia – which included being one of the faces of the Matildas' 2015 strike and the landmark pay deal securing the women's team equal pay with the Socceroos – she is well-placed to offer an athlete's perspective around a table of sporting decision-makers. But she is not unrealistic about the challenges of being thrown in at the deep end.
'It's going to be a lot of learning at the beginning,' she says. 'But also, I know what the modern day issues are and where the barriers are, where the successes are. A lot of my friends and acquaintances are current and recently retired athletes, so it's very easy for me to get feedback from them, that kind of insight that maybe hasn't had that option or opportunity there before.'
The government finalised a $385m package for sport, to be overseen by the ASC, in November. It will support high-performance and participation programs until mid-2026, in a period crucial for preparations for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 and the Brisbane 2032 Games.
Williams is aware of the responsibility of the ASC – led by chief executive Kieren Perkins and guided by Jenkins and the board – and has immersed herself in reading to familiarise herself with its remit. She has found the interview process and early discussions with colleagues eye-opening.
'The biggest part is how many KPIs you have to hit with a certain amount of revenue or funding, and how do you adjust that,' Williams says. 'When you're in it as just a player, you only think about yourself and not what everyone's doing in the organisation.'
The goalkeeper experienced the highs of the 2023 Women's World Cup, as well as the struggles of elite women's football before professionalism. She believes there is more to be done to assist athletes in transitioning into a life without sport, but it is also up to individuals to make the most of opportunities.
'Your sport is what you do and is what you will be known for, but it's important that whilst you're in it to make these connections and start to have an identity outside of it, because if you quit and that was it and you haven't done anything, you're normally stuck in a hole,' she says.
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The West Australian spent her teenage years in Canberra, enjoyed playing stints in the US and Europe, and now lives in northern Melbourne. She said Australia must look at international examples to help develop opportunities in the women's professional arena.
'The WNBA [US women's basketball] had to renegotiate their deal [with players] because they were making almost too much,' Williams says. 'To buy a NWSL [US women's football] team three years ago was $2m, now it's $100m. Then you've got to go, what were the things that they did to get to this level of true marketability, how they became a beast themselves.'
Off-field roles in Australian sport have traditionally been the domain of men and in 2023 fewer than one in four CEOs and board chairs of national sporting organisations were women. Williams believes this bias has meant issues specific to women such as managing menstrual cycles or pregnancy and motherhood are only recently attracting the necessary attention.
'If you do have a woman there, that's someone who's going to relate more and have more empathy or understanding on what athletes want and what they're fighting for,' she says.
After playing her last match for the Matildas in 2024, Williams signed with Melbourne Victory for the current A-League Women season. However, she struggled with her wrist and underwent surgery in January. The club confirmed she will miss the rest of the season last week.
Following three months in a cast, she will begin rehabilitation, and potentially a return to the field at A-League or even local level. But after having the bones in her wrist fused, she admits the outcome of the procedure – and just how many more balls she can parry and punch – is uncertain.
Ultimately, Williams says she is comfortable in the thought that she might have played her final professional game in a sport that has given her much, but taken plenty too.
'From what the surgeon has said, this is an injury that usually he sees in people 60-plus, so to see it in a mid-30s person is pretty rare,' she says. 'It's a bit of an unknown, now I can actually see what life is like without it being painful or sore.'