The Sydney Swans and AFL culture

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more. One of Australia's most recognizable broadcasters is facing the biggest battle of his life. Alan Jones has pleaded not guilty to multiple historical sexual assault charges and now the case is before the courts. I'm not going to dwell here on the allegations made about me. Other than to say that I refute them entirely. As witnesses step into the box in the evidence unfolds, the case of podcast will be your eyes and ears inside the courtroom. Search the case of podcast on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the sort of allegation that over the decades has rocked sporting codes. The AFL and Sydney Swans are in the midst of it again. The allegations of sexual assault that have embroiled four of its players. Today we speak to Peter Jess, an AFL player agent about how the sports protocols need to change. And to Matthew Kludman, a sports expert at Victoria University. I'm Sam Hauling on Gadigal Land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. (upbeat music) A bombshell sexual assault allegation involving the Sydney Swans continues to rock the AFL today. Police say the exact circumstances are yet to be established and the investigation into the incident remains ongoing. The Swans were staying at the Pullman Hotel near the MCG following their 36-point win over Essendon like Sunday afternoon. The alleged incidents took place in the early hours of Monday morning. The ABC understands four players are linked to the investigation. There's no confirmation that they are directly involved or that all four have spoken to police. The statement says that the exact details are yet to be established and that no one has been arrested or formally interviewed. The club's coach, Dean Cox, briefly addressed media outside Sydney Swans headquarters. We're working my way through every AFL and the relevant parties and will update where we get more information. Matthew, obviously there is very limited that you or I know or can say about the allegations, apart from, of course, what has been reported so far in the press. But just tell me what were your thoughts when you saw this story break? Yeah, like it's a devastating story. And at the same time, it doesn't feel surprising at all. In terms of what we already know about the culture of the AFL and men's footy more generally. And I think that was kind of shown by all the media stories about it. The prominent media stories have moved immediately to what this means for the league, rather than what this means for those alleged victims. And they can't let other victims of sexual assault. It's men's football. You know, men's Aussie rules and the focus is on those men. Yeah, what do you make of the AFLs and the Swans initial response to all of this? Well, I think there's some sense of the seriousness, but it's also ludicrous and I think really indicative of the boys club and the white boys club that still runs the AFL that, you know, along with the AFL's integrity unit, Tom Harley, who was the former CEO of the Sydney Swans, is the person helping lead the investigation from the AFL side. So, you know, on the face of it, it seems extraordinary that you would have the former CEO of the organisation under investigation being the person helping lead that investigation. OK, well, at the time that we're speaking, of course, just to note that none of the players have been arrested or charged with any offense. Let's leave that case there, because as we said, there is an investigation underway. But let's chat more about the AFL, its culture and the protocols that are currently in place. Now, there have been numerous scandals, of course, in the past, haven't there, in terms of player behaviour. Yes, yeah, yeah, you know, it's an ongoing issue for the league. You know, most recently, I think we see a lot about how the AFL operates in terms of what's happened with Nikki Windman, where a court did find him guilty of violence against a woman. Bestowed one of the game's highest honours in 2022, Nikki Windman's fall from grace has continued today with the AFL commission moving to strip him of his Hall of Fame status. The 60-year-old was found guilty of three counts of unlawful assault and common law assault. His victim told the court she continued to have pain in her arm and chest and now guarded herself from people. He was immediately removed from the AFL's Hall of Fame, the Western Australian government immediately uprooted and took away the statue of him in Borough in Perth. And that's happened, but we don't see anything equivalent. So in the AFL Hall of Fame at the moment, there's Wayne Carey, who's, you know, on record having a soldered woman, there's Gary Abelert Senior implicated in the death of a young woman, there's Sam Newman, who's infamous for a lot of sexist behaviour and comments. And none of those, you know, have been removed from the Hall of Fame. So we see that the AFL just refuses to do anything about its intertwined systemic problems around gender, race and sexuality. All right, well, Peter Jess, who has a long association with the AFL prominent player manager for some time, I actually also spoke to him. He says that actually he thinks that there needs to be third party protocols. What we need to make sure of is that if you are going to have access to the player's workplace, and that's what it is, is that if they're in a hotel or if they're anywhere, that the appropriate security and the appropriate systems of safety are put in place, not only for the players, but for third parties. That means is that everybody knows who's on the premise. Where they are and what is happening. And it may not have prevented what had happened, but at least it would fast track any of the outcomes. So in that sense, what you think that then provides protection for the players and protection for any other person that might be in that hotel or invited into that hotel. Yeah, I mean, what we'd like to think is that these protocols are already there, but obviously given what the circumstances are of what we've seen, it appears that those safety protocols were in place. And for me, it is a red flag for the safety of the players and also for the safety of third parties. The problem I guess with protocols is that it can be easily broken. This is when you have people who are put in place to monitor those systems. And if there was the appropriate person who was to monitor it, then you would have a record of all the coming scowings and who they were and if they had the appropriate checks and balances. And as you say, this would be protection for third parties as well, not just for AFL players. No, it's for all those people that if you visit a workplace, it's pretty standard. If you come into the AFL office, you have to sign in. You know, people have to know who you are and they take photos of you. You know, if all of those protocols were available, the job would be very easy to find out what had happened. So Matthew, that was Peter J.S. What do you think of his idea? Could that actually help here? Yeah, for me, those are kind of forms of risk management that, you know, put band-aids on much more serious wounds. I don't see the necessity in that and kind of what we could call those kind of cultural responses of limiting movement, limiting access and these other forms of risk management. When underneath it all is a systemic issue of sexism, a systemic issue around entitlement, a systemic issue where it's really clear in terms of how the AFL treats its two leagues, the AFL M, the men's competition and the AFL W, the women's competition. It's really clear that the women's competition is secondary, that women are secondary in, you know, through so much of what the league does. And so if you don't address that issue, then it's not going to limit or do the work that actually is needed to stop sexual assault, to stop violence against women. But if a team, just to delve into that a bit more, if when an AFL team is travelling together, so they're all in one place, wherever that might be, if that place is deemed a workplace, wouldn't that actually really change a lot? Yeah, these definitely. are workplaces, but you know you have an issue where you know these are a young humans who get paid a lot of money but also have to live within incredible curtailing of their freedoms in many ways. So to kind of try and limit that more generally I don't understand the point of that when actually what is that issue are the attitudes and forms of entitlement that lead to sexual assault that lead to violence against women and that's that's where the work needs to be. Do you think that that has been shifting at all and what needs to change now? The heart of it is the culture of these sports you know these sports sports in these lands emerged as a way of turning white boys into white men and they remain considered the province of white men and we continue to see that in terms of who runs them, who commentates on them, who makes the most money out of them as a rule and that culture is incredibly resistant, incredibly defensive and breaking that open you know because sport can be so many other things and we see lots of possibilities of it and the kind of beauty of sport is curtailed into these really rigid defensive organizations that yeah like foster these these very harmful cultures and you know I think more broadly we can see it in terms of what's happening like you know the violence against women at the moment the number of women who've been killed by current or former partners who are men this year is staggering so there's a cultural problem which sport is at the heart of but it's also significantly broader than sport but yeah sport is a key place where you could intervene you know where actually you know for the AFL they could treat the women's league like they treat the men's league as long as season the women getting much more money you know on par all of these kinds of things but they've always got arguments against that and at the same time they're willing to lose millions and millions of dollars supporting men's teams for broader cultural reasons. Well Matthew just tell me then I mean this seems like a huge almost insurmountable problem so what needs to happen now because people have been talking about this for a very very long time. Yeah it's a commitment to actually doing the work to actually doing systemic work systemic change is possible we've seen it in lots of places around the world you could have situations where women's sport is valued as much as men's where these binaries are broken down where it's not only white people at the heart of these sports where it's not only you know these sports are not necessarily kind of institutions of heteronormativity where everyone is made to behave as if they're straight so you can do that work but it requires investing in it and committing to it wholesale you know not symbolic acts you know it does nothing to change the broader culture of the game and it's the culture of the game which is at the heart of these kinds of issues. Matthew Klognan is from Victoria University and we spoke to Peter Jess an AFL player agent. This episode was produced by a Laria Brophy and Louise Milan audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is Sydney Beade. I'm Sam Arling thanks for listening.