Richmond Football Club is leading a pioneering affirmative action project, with Australian Sports Commission and AFL backing, to investigate the real and perceived blocks to women reaching the highest positions in sport.

The result of a three-year study promises to provide not only the most comprehensive insight yet into an imbalance, but is also being undertaken by an AFL club committed to responding with ''robust interventions''.

While Richmond is the first AFL club with a female president - lawyer and long-time club director Peggy O'Neal was appointed last October - the ''Women into Leadership in Elite Sport Report'' has been driven by senior Tiger men. Former player now Richmond CEO Brendon Gale acknowledged what was an obvious effort for equal opportunity, but told Fairfax Media the prime motivation for the Tigers was the scope to improve business.

''Quite narrowly and selfishly thinking about Richmond, it needs to happen because it makes really good business sense,'' Mr Gale said. ''This is not about altruism. In the cold light of day this is about making our business better.

''At the higher levels of our football club, and speaking more generally about the industry, women are under-represented. When there is a lack of women who are candidates for these sorts of jobs, our talent pool is extremely limited. We've all got hunches and suspicions, this is about understanding why.''

Doctor Pippa Grange, author of the alarming ''Bluestone'' review of culture for Swimming Australia after the 2012 London Olympics, and Simon Matthews, Richmond's boss of media and stakeholder relations, initiated the project. Dr Grange, who has consulted at several AFL clubs since working at the AFL Players Association, will oversee the research with sport and social justice expert Paul Oliver who has previously worked for the Australian Human Rights Commission.

The pair is expected to table findings and recommendations by mid-year, and eventually oversee ''interventions'' at Richmond - which has in effect volunteered to be a test environment - from next January.

As part of the project - being equally funded by the Australian Sports Commission, the AFL and Richmond - about 50 interviews have already been conducted. Views of current and former employees in the AFL, whose identities will be protected in a report that will be circulated, have been sought.

From next year, the impact of the intervention responses at Richmond will also be measured in order to catalogue changes in attitudes, behaviour and perceptions.

The promotion of women at the AFL has been a weak point historically. CEO Andrew Demetriou recently lamented that the game was ''miles away from where we must be'' in terms of female representation in senior positions.