Australian women's football's "La Masia" is gone.  With minimal consultation, little notice and even less preparation of a substitute program, the NSW Institute of Sport women's football program (and the men's) has been scrapped for the 2013-2016 cycle.   

From the Institute's point of view you can't really blame them.  As stated on their website "NSWIS supports and develops targeted elite and emerging athletes to achieve their highest potential."

That "highest potential" for the sports it supports is the Olympic Games and the brutal truth is the Matildas haven't qualified for the last two Olympic tournaments and the Olyroos never looked like getting on the flying Kangaroo for London 2012. 

While the exclusion of the men's football program is a setback (they have various programs/teams/leagues available), the discontinuation of the women's program is, quite frankly, a disaster. 

Since its inception NSWIS has been the breeding ground of some of Australia's best female footballers with NSW (and NSWIS) has provided the bulk of the national team players for many years. In fact when you look at the last Matildas squad convened (for the EAFF East Asia Cup qualifiers), 12 of the 20 players had spent at least one year in the NSWIS program as part of their development. 

Further, the recent W-League champions, Sydney FC, were essentially an Institute team with no less than 15 of the 20 squad members (at that time) current or past NSWIS players. 

At the head of the program was Alen Stajcic, a coach who is arguably one of the best, if not the best, developmental coaches in Australia. 

Of that aforementioned Matildas squad, Stajcic had a hand in the development of no less than 14 of those players either at NSWIS or during his time as the Young Matildas coach.  That number increases dramatically if you take into account more than a decade at NSWIS and his time as the coach of the NSW Sapphires in the old Women's National Soccer League. 

As it stands, he is out of a job.

"His" players are now scattered across the NSW Women's Premier League.  This problem, however, is not confined to NSW. 

If they are not one of the lucky handful who have picked up contracts overseas, W-League players from Perth to Melbourne to Brisbane have been forced to return to their State Leagues to play during the long off season. 

With no disrespect to the State Leagues, but with the competition varying state to state, and actually team to team in the leagues, is this really the best way to develop current and future national team players?

With differing training standards, coaching, match intensity and pitch conditions, is this truly the best way to prepare current and future Matildas to take on the best in the world? 

At a time when several countries in Asia (and the rest of the world) are stepping up their women's programs, we are taking a step (or two) back.  NSWIS has now gone the same way as WA, Victorian, Queensland and South Australian Institute of Sport programs with little or nothing to replace it as Adelaide United's Marjiana Rajcic eloquently opined. 

In NSW there has been talk of a replacement program.  A FFA spokesman told the Sydney Morning Herald that a state wide program would be run with Football NSW "to oversee the development of women's under-20 and under-17 squads."  The program was to start in February and "run on a similar basis to the model operated at NSWIS".

As it stands today, not a ball has been kicked and trying to find out any information about the 'program' is an exercise in patience. 

However there is a Football NSW program for 13 – 18 years old.  That's helpful right? 

The most alarming part has been the radio silence. No-one is talking about this significant blow to the development factory that is NSW. 

But that's fine because Australia will (barring an almighty disaster) qualify for the 2015 World Cup.  And we should make the knockout stage because of the sheer talent available.  Those same players should take us to the 2019 World Cup as well (although they will be nearing 30) and four years after that that same group of players, now in their mid-30s, will qualify us for the 2023 World Cup…right Socceroos? 

The Matildas already hold Australia's only silverware and are realistically Australia's only chance of gaining international silverware in the next four years.  However if appropriate action is not taken the above scenario is the potential disaster looming in the future. 

The same arguments and angst currently surrounding the Socceroos will surround the Matildas or maybe it won't. 

It's only women's football after all.