The Australian government has "demanded the country's most funded sports rein in gender discrimination for travel arrangements to major events or risk having their support cut," according to Ian Ransom of REUTERS. Australia's basketball association "came under fire during the London Olympics after it was revealed that the medal-winning national women's team flew economy class to the 2012 Games while the less successful men's side were in business class seats." Australia's football and cricket authorities also "offer different travel standards for top male and female athletes." Federal Sports Minister Sussan Ley and Australian Sports Commission Chair John Wylie wrote to the 30 top-funded organizations "demanding changes." The letter said, "In 2016, we can think of no defensible reason why male and female athletes should travel in different classes or stay in different standard accommodation when attending major international sporting events." Professional Footballers Australia welcomed the move as "long overdue" (REUTERS, 2/3). In Sydney, Nicole Jeffery reported the ASC's bid to stamp out the practice "may have hit a stumbling block." Football and cricket said that they are "broadly in favour of the move but that their respective international federations pay team airfares for World Cups, where the discrepancy is ingrained -- men fly business class, women fly premium economy." Wylie said that he did not want to "name and shame" the sports that had inequitable travel policies but that they mostly comprised the major professional sports. Wylie: "It's not really an issue in Olympic sports. It's more the professional sports. Some of them have to tighten up their policies." Both Football Federation Australia and Cricket Australia confirmed that "they had discrepancies in their travel policies that they were working to address" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 2/4).
