In an unprecedented Australia Day twilight match between club heavyweights, Richmond want to host Collingwood at Punt Road Oval and mark the historic arrival of the AFL women's league.

A stand-alone opening fixture of what's guaranteed to be a radically different season, given eight AFL clubs will field elite female sides in 2017, has been pitched formally to the league by the Tigers.

Among eight clubs vying for four licences, the AFL intends to award in Victoria for season one of the new national competition, Richmond is proposing male AFL players will present jumpers to female footballers sharing the same number to add to the inaugural match occasion.

The Tigers have submitted the Australia Day game be a free annual event with pre-match clinics and a boardroom function for family members of the first cohort of elite female AFL players and sponsors.

The match would likely take place more than a week before the first pre-season game played by male AFL clubs next year, boosting exposure and impact of the women's league with the involvement of such well-followed clubs.

"Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs have done a great job building the profile of women's football, but we think a marquee game, involving two new sides, would quickly broaden the competition in the minds of supporters," Richmond chief executive Brendon Gale told Fairfax Media on the day his club submitted its women's team bid.

"We think the idea of a stand-alone season opener at Punt Road – played in the twilight or at night – is a significant opportunity to create a major women's football event that will give the competition some real momentum.

"Australia Day is a perfect day in that it appears it would be eight or nine days out from the scheduled season start. This gives the marketing of the game some clear air and some theming opportunities as well."

Should it win the right to field a female team from next year, Richmond also wants their new side to play a curtain-raiser to one of its preseason NAB Challenge games played by their male arm.

Richmond have not specified Collingwood as their ideal season-opening opponent in their women's team licence bid, but Fairfax understands the Pies are the club they have firmly in mind.

Women's football pioneer clubs Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs are widely considered to have their bids for a team from year one all but ticked off by the AFL. Collingwood's strong submission – the planks of which Fairfax revealed three weeks ago – and undeniable reach are thought within the industry to be too good for the AFL to resist.

With Hawthorn and Essendon the only Victorian clubs that did not bid for women's sides for next year, it leaves a battle between Richmond, Geelong, North Melbourne, Carlton and St Kilda for the remaining licence. Unless – as St Kilda's CEO proposed this week – the AFL decides to include more than four Victorian clubs from season one.

In January, a twilight game at Punt Road would not provide any issues for television broadcast quality; relevant given the interest of Fox Sports and Channel 7 in covering the AFL's female league.

There are lights at Punt Road Oval considered conducive to providing footage of webcast quality.

The key planks of Richmond's bid for a women's team is a proven commitment to gender equity over several years.

Richmond present as an authentic example of an organisation already proactively committed to equality. They highlight, in their licence bid, that they have demonstrated support – well before now – of female football in coaching and playing. The club also presents its Punt Road headquarters as a female-friendly, fully functioning facility for athletes in an iconic, central setting.

Richmond are not only the first club in VFL/AFL history to appoint a female president – Peggy O'Neal made that history in 2013 – they also commissioned a meaty gender report as a reference for the whole of Australian sport.

Richmond continue to measure themselves against tangible models and targets that report set out to combat gender discrimination and inequality.

From a commercial perspective, the Tigers' enviable supporter base makes a compelling argument, particularly given the club's strength in demographics considered key in the success of the women's league.

Using metrics they have on membership, attendances and television audience, Richmond says they are the AFL's undisputed leader at converting fans into consumers over the past six years.