WESTERN Australia has put up its hand to have a team in the inaugural season of a proposed national women's competition. 

AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan has made no secret of his desire to start a national women's league, and WA wants to be a part of it.

"We certainly would and I think that's a great move by the AFL," Western Australian premier Colin Barnett told AFL.com.au.  

"There are around 200,000 women playing the game across Australia, and there are around 30,000 in Western Australia," he said.  

"If a national competition for women's football was developed, Western Australia, the state government and the teams here would certainly support that, we'd love to be a part of it." 

The growth of women's football cannot be ignored. 

This season there were two AFL sanctioned women's matches, with teams representing Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs. 

The second of the two matches made history, televised on Channel 7 to a national audience that more than held its own against regular AFL fixtures. 

Mr Barnett thinks it's unlikely WA could sustain two women's teams – one aligned to West Coast and another to Fremantle – from the League's inception.

But the WA premier is certainly up for the conversation.

"That might be a step away, but I think probably a Western Australian team (to start with). 

"I think in time you might have every AFL side having a women's team. 

McLachlan is on the record saying he wants a national women's competition in place by 2020, but his best-case scenario has a new league underway three years earlier in 2017.