It's time for women to be noticed on the Australian sporting field.

Matildas have made Australian sport history in 2015.

An unbelievable women’s netball final, a football team with the potential to be the Australian sporting story of the year, the best cricket team in the world, and the second best basketball team in the world.

Yet the question still remains: why is women's sport in Australia not fully professionalised yet?

Most will reply with that there's not a big enough market for professional sports in Australia.

Maybe that was the case five years ago but women's sport has totally taken off, and it's only going to get better.

Would you not watch our national women’s football team the Matilda's in the quarter-finals of the 2015 FIFA World Cup? What if the female cricket test Ashes series was on?

It is clear that there is no market for the highest men’s basketball competition in the country, the NBL, yet they are all professional athletes allowed to do what they love on a full-time basis. But can our women?

Essentially the total market is too small with all of the dollars soaked up by men's sport simply because that's where sponsors get the best return.

This leaves no money left for women's sport and that is unfortunately the reality.

But that is now based on ignorance from the public simply because haven't had the exposure. People have to spend money to make money and so far women's sport hasn't had anywhere near the help and infrastructure to appeal to potential sponsors.

Supporting men's sport is the status quo, but I have no doubt that everyone's reaction to last weekend's game of the netball on the weekend in the ANZ Championship final showed that people are ready to get around women's sport just as much as men's - certainly on a national level at the very least.

By incentivising the national teams making them fully professional, it presents a more viable option for young upcoming girls when it comes to the time in their lives when they must choose to completely commit to their chosen sport.

Currently none of the Matildas, Opals or Southern Stars players are full-time professional athletes.

But if they became so, it would give the opportunity for people to invest hard into their chosen sport thus improving the standard of the entire competition and watch it grow exponentially.

Then it would only be a matter of time before sponsors and broadcasters alike cotton onto the absolute untapped potential.

It's 2015 and there is no way that the discrepancy in payday is matched by a discrepancy in standard anymore.

Sally Pearson has been the most closely followed Australian athlete of the last 10 years because she's filled the void left by a lack of Australian successful male athletes.

But the Southern Stars, for example, have not received the same exposure for their success.

Therefore it's not fair to compare audiences across both genders.

Women's sport hasn't had the opportunity to have a similar audience because it isn't publicised anywhere near the same amount as their counterparts.

We are lucky enough in Australia that we can follow nearly every major elite male sport competition in the world.

However if someone wanted to follow women's cricket, football, basketball, etc., they would have to go out of their way to find a way how.

People are always going to be sucked into whatever sport is most accessible but the vicious cycle isn't necessarily reflective of a lack of interest.

I will admit that I have been guilty in the past of ignoring or struggling to find interest in some of the amazing accomplishments of our women’s sporting teams, but 2015 has certainly provided a necessary wake-up call.

The State of Origin Series should be a standalone event.

Following another standard brutal and physical Game Two in the 2015 State of Origin series, what would be the general consensus of having a standalone series in the future?

In all honesty, it’s probably a good idea.

The NRL should do its uttermost to make it happen by reducing the regular season under the current flawed system of playing each team once and then randomly picking the remaining match-ups.

A 23-man squad would be ideal for a three-week series by itself with the starting line-ups only having to be announced two hours prior to kick-off. 

The NRL should adopt a conference style season with four teams to make up each conference.

Then teams would play each other in the conference twice, home and away, and everyone else once.

It would be an 18-round season plus three separate weeks of the State of Origin that we all love, followed by four weeks of the finals series.

A 25-week season. 

Doesn’t sound too bad now does it?

With Internationals to correspond after domestic footy, the season for professional rugby league players is easily long enough to keep fans satisfied.

So where would the conferences be situated across the nation?

Firsty, I’d suggest one made up of the North Queensland Cowboys, Brisbane Broncos, Gold Coast Titans, and New Zealand Warriors (because everyone knows that Queensland is plentiful with Kiwis).

Despite the would-be inevitable issue regarding fair conferences, this essentially is the reason why we have a salary cap in the league.

The whole idea of a salary cap is to keep a fair competition, which is the perfect reason to have conferences as can be seen in the NFL, NBA, and NHL in America, and recently taken up by the Super Rugby Championship in Australia.

The next conference would be the Melbourne Storm, Canberra Raiders, St George Illawarra Dragons, and Cronulla Sharks.

Then the South Sydney Rabbitohs, Sydney Roosters, Newcastle Knights, and Manly Sea Eagles, keeping fans of the already given rivalries in the competition something to look forward to each year.

The remaining bunch would be the Canterbury Bulldogs, Penrith Panthers, Wests Tigers, and Parramatta Eels.

It really would be a great spin on the NRL despite its governing body going backwards at the minute.

Every year the fans are guaranteed two rivalry games for those clubs where history is a factor.

Every team in the whole competition doesn’t play each other twice either which would be a nice change from today’s format.

The current system is undeniably unfair, which has me struggling to come to terms with why there isn’t more of an uproar about it.

How it works now basically is that we let all teams play each other once then randomly pick the rest of the 11 rounds. 

Does that not seem strange?

At least in a conference system, you know your games every year.

I get that playing each time twice is unrealistic, but what I don’t get is the fact that some teams play another team twice in the space of just four weeks.

It is a bit far-fetched and makes no sense - which is why it is time for the NRL to make a change for the better.

Who should host the FIFA World Cup instead of Qatar and Russia?

The most prized trophy in world sport.

Even though it is unlikely for the destinations of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups to change, it is still quite possible a revote could take place if FIFA is proved to have accepted bribery.

So if the 2018 tournaments in Qatar as well as the 2022 in Russia were to lose their hosting rights, then which countries should replace them?

My initial thoughts are that it should be England for 2018, and then a battle between the United States and Australia for 2022 with the Americans getting the edge.

After all, it was the US who essentially saved football following the commencement of investigations into the FIFA scandal in the last month.

But if former FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s supporters vote against the Yanks, then the world’s biggest sporting event may end up Down Under.

For 2018, England simply just have to get it.

In fact, I would not even consider a revote – I’d just give it to them.

Despite not having too many friends in the powers of world football, they created our beautiful game and have already got the experience of hosting a World Cup, being in 1966. 

With the revamp of countless stadiums in Britain that we see today displayed by the English Premier League, it really is a no-brainer – just give it to the Poms.

England aside, I would not even mind if the US got it considering they had the balls to go after FIFA in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong, it would be absolutely amazing for Australia to host one of the two next World Cups – or even just one while I’m still alive.

But Australia and Football Federation Australia are just seen as a useless little sheep by the rest.

For that reason, I’d let the Americans have it for the good they have done – it could even be seen as the 2022 FBI World Cup.

We have some of the world's best football stadiums in the southern hemisphere, let alone the world, that we demonstrate year in year out with our football codes in all four seasons, and notably our cricket in the summer.

Alas having said that, USA is one of the few countries that could take down FIFA.

Australia realistically could not.

We might be useless sheep but that’s what we ever are and can be.

But with all considered, it is still very doubtful that the removal of Qatar and Russia for their respective World Cup year’s will occur.

Stripping a country of something that’s already had huge amounts of money spent on would have extreme ramifications.

But perhaps not if the bids are proven to have mixed with criminal activity and bribery.

Out of the two 2018 and 2022 host nations, Russia would undeniably be more furious if it lost its rights.

Is Russia really a country we want to anger in this day and age?

The FIFA World Cup goes beyond football.

For the sake of the game and the rest of the world, I wouldn’t take it off Russia or we might even have WWIII on our hands.

But it’s not like England cannot host it in the blink of an eye.

All the correct infrastructure is in place and ready to go, but the hopes of the English public may have just taken a hit.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said he supported Qatar hosting the 2022 tournament but said Britain would work with another country if FIFA re-opened the bidding process. 

"We would offer our support to any country that has been chosen to host the World Cup," Hammond recently told BBC World Service radio, saying the final decision would be for FIFA to make. 

Hammond ruled out any British bid to host the 2022 competition if Qatar was stripped of hosting rights.

All bribery aside, Russia can be debated as a viable place for a major sporting event – one just has to look at how well they coped with the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Whereas Qatar barely has a leg to stand on in this criteria, which is why the Middle-Eastern folk take a liking for whinging at Russia at any given opportunity.

The only issue with Russia taking control of a massive sporting event as the World Cup can be compared to Greece and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

The Greeks spent all this money on infrastructure that is now rotting to waste.

This is a key element that is supposedly part of the FIFA World Cup bidding process – that structures built for the purpose of the event will be sustainable and useful to the community at the conclusion of the event.

It is difficult to put a timeline on when the investigations for the recent outbreaks in FIFA will be settled.

But if it came down to it, a revote would be the most plausible option for selecting the new hosting rights for the next two World Cups.

Sepp Blatter resigns as FIFA President: A great day in world football

The resignation of former FIFA President Sepp Blatter earlier this week marked a wonderful moment for any persons closely involved in and around world football. 

The uncovering of the confirmed corruption and criminal activities that go far and deep into the world’s most popular sporting governing body should be of no surprise to knowledgeable onlookers, particularly since the announcement of the 2022 World Cup to be held in the Arab, and most unlikely venue, country of Qatar.

Last week Sepp Blatter, who lead FIFA for 17 years, came out fighting for his position after being re-elected for another term as FIFA president. 

Two days ago, Blatter handed in his resignation and claimed that FIFA now needs a massive overhaul after just reaffirming that in fact there was nothing to hide for the executive committee. 

The most interesting part of the resignation will be, without a shadow of doubt, the fallout of events that are bound to happen over the next weeks, months, or years as claims of corruption have been backdated to nearly two decades ago.

But what this means for Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy and his country is different scenario, and ultimately how this actually affected our bid for a 2018 and 2022 World Cup.

Lowy presented in an open letter to the public last Wednesday that “Australia has tried its best to work within football forums to promote reform. In 2013 we began work on ideas which would allow FIFA to operate with greater transparency and accountability. Many others in world football have been working on similar projects.”

Of course, this is probably what Lowy wants Australians, most of all, to believe to begin the process of saving his own backside.

Lowy then went on to write, “we ran a clean bid. I know that others did not, and I have shared what I know with the authorities, including Michael Garcia who undertook a 2-year investigation into the 2022 World Cup bid. But did we make mistakes? Yes. Were we naïve? In some cases, yes. Would we do things differently in future? Absolutely.”

Does this mean that the FFA can be put into the corrupted category too? 

It will be important to keep an open mind as ever as US authorities, notably the FBI, get right down to the business end of the longest run of controversial events in world football to date.