The Matildas changed the game. Now can we make sport truly inclusive?

Karina Grigorian’s week usually looks like this: a personal training session, 3 sessions practicing on the football field and 2 sessions of strength and conditioning at the gym.

Plus a part-time retail job, occasionally volunteering at the Armenian National Committee of Australia and studying full-time for her communications degree at UTS.

Karina’s passion for football makes this relentless schedule worth it. Football’s been a part of Karina's life since childhood. Her early years were filled with the excitement of weekend matches, watching games on TV, and kicking a ball around with her siblings. But as a player with cerebral palsy, as much as she loved the sport, she wasn’t sure of what her pathways were.

Born in Australia and growing up in an Armenian-Russian family, she was surrounded by the game. ‘My father grew up in the USSR, where the system was very strict, very rigid, but sport was how he let loose. When he came to Australia, he joined a club, and my older brothers played too. So, football was always around me,’ she says.

‘My dad is quite traditional. Being a girl, and someone with a disability … they were like, “why would she play football?” But I kept persisting.’

The opportunity to play seriously came through a program run by the Cerebral Palsy Alliance in 2013. It was through their football camps that she first got to play in a structured program. ‘I was like, can I do it? I see my dad and my brothers playing all the time, can I do that too?' And they said, “yes. You can.” So I went. The camps were only held twice a year but those were the best times – I kept going every year.’

Karina continued playing with CP Alliance, and in 2019 when Football NSW began training programs for women players, she joined them too. But going any further seemed out of reach.

‘We always hoped a team would come together, but it felt impossible. Then, in my final year of high school, it happened. A teammate suggested I try out for the new female-only para team, the ParaMatildas, and I was invited to the ParaNationals.’

The competition was daunting – their team was the only women's team, the rest were men’s. ‘The rules are different for men and women in para football, so the line gets blurred – between being able to play, but not having equal competition. Like, of course you’re going to lose playing against men’s teams, but at least it was an opportunity to play. I guess it’s just laying down the building blocks to something else.’

The ParaMatildas is Australia’s first national women’s team for footballers with cerebral palsy, acquired brain injuries, or symptoms of stroke. Established in 2022, they are now ranked world number 1 ranked in women's CP Football, following an International Federation of Cerebral Palsy Football (IFCPF) World Cup win last year.

Karina lights up when she talks about her team. ‘I was not selected to play the World Cup. I think me being on exchange in Spain was a factor as the coaches couldn’t see me tarin. But I was literally at uni, in Spain, when the game was on, I was streaming it and telling all these international people around me – hey have a look guys, that’s my team playing! We had been preparing for this game for so long. To see them succeed was incredible. It was insane.’

Para sports are growing, but players are still fighting for recognition and investment. Unlike professional footballers, Karina and her teammates aren't paid. Training must fit around jobs and studies, and funding is limited.

‘Each individual manages their own training, so you’re not training as a team on a regular basis, only a few times a year.

‘I know other athletes in para sports – for example, a friend of mine is a field and track runner. She got Bronze at the recent Paralympics. But she’s only really on scholarships. So she’s getting paid in a sense, but not for the training she does. It consumes her life, and she’s at the international level, but she’s still not a paid professional,’ Karina reflects.

Despite these challenges, Karina has played internationally, including in Japan and at the Asian Cup in Melbourne. ‘Playing in Japan was incredible – 3 games in an international setting. That was right before the Asian Cup, which we won! SBS even broadcast it, which was amazing.’

Karina is also part of the UTS Elite Athlete Program, which helps to balance the study load with sporting commitments when, for example, games interfere with assignment deadlines or study obligations.

‘It’s great to be part of the program. It helps smooth the way, it gives me access to the gym, helps with strength and conditioning, and keeps me in the loop with scholarships that are on offer,’ she says.

‘When I went to play in Japan I had to miss some uni, and the Elite Athlete Program helped sort that out.’

Support is one thing, recognition is another. That coverage on SBS? ‘One of our players is a teacher, and her students wrote to SBS asking them to cover our tournament. That’s why we got on TV. But it shows you – we have to ask for everything, it’s all coming from our efforts.

‘And because I don’t have anyone to push me I have to push myself, but then I’m always asking, am I pushing myself enough? Am I doing the right things? And there’s the added complexity of training with disability where I have weakness on one side – I have right hemiplegia, which affects my whole right side – so I can’t match what I do on my left side.

‘All my teammates are the same, everyone just kind of does their own thing and just gets on with it. All that would completely change if it were a paid profession. Because it's not, I don’t see a bright future for me … but I think we’re at the stage now where we’re creating the pathway for future generations. I’m hopeful that there could be a big change.’

Karina is keenly aware of the gaps in women's and para sports. ‘The Matildas have done incredible work for women’s football. Now we need that inclusivity to expand to para athletes.’

‘It is great to see so many more girls signing up for football because of the Matildas. It really seems to have made a lasting impact. It’s incredible for me to watch like I see girls are signing up to play football, they’re more engaged in sports. I think that’s so cool. Now I’d love to see that inclusivity broaden to other minority groups – to people with disability,’ she says.

‘I just hope that there were girls who watched the World Cup we played in, girls who have a disability like me and my teammates, who might think, “oh, maybe I could play.” Because they can. And we’re building more and more pathways for girls like them.’

Karina is graduating soon and while some of her teammates are in their 30s, she fears she won't have the time to continue training at this level while working full time.

‘I study Communications, majoring in Political Sciences – that will, I hope, set me up in a career in politics, advocacy or policy,’ she says. ‘I guess having a disability has honed my focus on the social inequality I see around me. It kind of placed me in that bubble based on my own lived experience.

‘But university study has opened me more to the experiences of other minority groups, and of inequality in the world. I know I want to work in politics… advocacy, policy, even foreign policy. There are lots of things I’m interested in, I could see myself going in lots of different directions. But definitely centred around that political sphere.’

In the meantime, ‘the Intercontinental Cup is coming up in England. There’s a selection camp for that in August this year, so I’ve got my eye on that.

‘It has been incredible to see the growth in women's sport. I thank the women in my life. My mother, my sister, and all the women who went before and are building the foundations in society, paving the way for women of all types or disability. We're showing everyone that it’s possible to do what you want."