Sydney Swans chief executive Matthew Pavlich, coach Dean Cox and captain Callum Mills spoke to reporters in the 24 hours after police began investigating an alleged sexual assault at the Pullman Hotel on Monday.
None of the three said much – likely on legal advice – but none felt compelled to even share a thought about the woman or women whose experiences prompted them to go to police.
For a sport with an unsatisfactory record on rape and sexual violence, this week delivered another regrettable chapter.
Nobody has been arrested or charged and formal interviews have not taken place. So far there is little detail widely known about what has occurred.
But according to family violence specialist and former chief executive of Respect Victoria, Emily Maguire, alleged victims should not be forgotten.
“They are human beings,” she says. “They are women, likely to be younger women, who need privacy, who need to make sure that they’re safe and supported and that they’ve got that support around them.”
The situation has drawn extreme media interest, filling pages of newspapers and hours of television coverage, while also spreading quickly on social media. Footy fans and hangers on brought their own baggage to circumstances that were already heavy.
Some public figures – including on prominent football programmes – handled the matter delicately, even as Channel Seven personality Kane Cornes approached the alleged sexual assault largely from a sporting lens.
“This is where I get really angry, from a football point of view,” he said. “Their season is done. How would [veterans] Dane Rampe, Jake Lloyd or Tom Papley, who has lost three grand finals be feeling?”
The AFL has so far declined to comment, as they wait for the police to make enquiries and determine the facts in this instance.
The club and the players have not yet had the chance to provide a full account of the evening, to police or to the wider football community.
The broader truth, however, is already well known. Australia has a problem, with one in five women experiencing sexual violence. Repeated, high-profile instances of abuse of women by footballers, as well as academic research, highlight how problematic attitudes towards women fester in football clubs around the country.
The influential 2021 National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey recommended ending violence against women by challenging “attitudes condoning gender inequality through points of influence, such as peer and social groups”, specifically identifying the importance of sports clubs and groups.
“What the research tells us about male-dominated institutions, which the AFL is, sports clubs absolutely are, if they are bonding in a way that is focused around control or dominance or performances of strength or toughness, or they have social expectations put on them that they shouldn’t say no to sex, or they should have multiple sexual partners, what the global research tells us is that in those sorts of cultures, sexual assault in particular and other forms of violence against women are much more likely to occur,” Maguire says.
“So that’s the conversation that we need to have: what the culture of a club, a sporting code, and an entire country is.”
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Masculinities and violence researcher Dr Shawna Marks, who has studied semi-professional and amateur footy, said this week is an opportunity to challenge the dominant and damaging attitudes towards women.
“It’s specific men who think that this sort of thing is OK and a lot of men who don’t, and for those men, being able to hold firm on that and hearing that message from people they look up to is really helpful,” she said. “It’s hard to be the only one standing up against these sorts of issues and saying that it’s not OK, it’s much easier when we all stand together.”
She has seen these attitudes lead to harm for women but also damage men. “What I found and what I didn’t expect to find was women talking about the negative impact that that culture was having on men playing football,” she says.
“There’s a need to zoom out with a case like this and look at what’s happening for young men and young women when this sort of behaviour becomes more and more normal.”
Already, the focus has shifted to whether the players will be stood down, either by the club or the AFL. It is a complex issue, challenging the presumption of innocence and one of Australia’s foundational principles of justice. It is also a point of contention at the AFL Players’ Association, which bristles at potential overreach.
The mechanic was pioneered in Australia by the NRL in 2019. That code applies a strict stand down policy in cases where a player is charged with a crime punishable by 11 years or more in jail, as well as a discretionary power in cases of violence against women.
In discussion of its appropriateness in each case, the consideration shifts the focus from the experience of the women and the culture that influenced alleged perpetrators, to issues of sporting reputation and individual accountability.
“It’s really important that we remember that, for people who use violence, that there is possibility for them to change,” Maguire says. “Sweeping their behaviour under the carpet, trying to address it as a risk to be managed as opposed to an opportunity for those men to make better choices, to make different choices moving on in their lives – we really don’t focus on that enough, and I think we need to do that a little bit more.”
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse is available from the following organisations. In Australia, support is available at Full Stop Australia (1800 385 578). In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html