The case of a woman in a male football team ends with a reminder rules need to change — to hold many more accountable
Casey McElroy is the only person to have paid a personal price for her controversial appearance in a men’s football team. The SANFL needs a major review of country football regulations
No images captured the Casey McElroy saga with greater emphasis than her entry to Adelaide Oval on Tuesday night for her tribunal hearing.
On walking through the gates that just three months earlier were swamped with football fans rewriting the record books for the AFLW women’s football grand final, McElroy turned left, then went right and dodged the bright lights of the cameras that created more pressure than anything she faced in her controversial appearances in the Padthaway men’s team last month.
To the point, McElroy was alone …
And it is extraordinary McElroy alone has paid the price for her game in the Kowree Naracoorte Tatiara Football League (KNTFL) reserves competition on May 25.
McElroy’s ban — that must be served in the Limestone Coast Women’s Football League — was reduced from six to four matches.
The Padthaway Football Club was fined $2000, $1000 suspended.
This does not add up.
How can there be no penalty to the Padthaway Football Club leaders who allowed the league’s rules to be breached — or to the team manager who handed McElroy her jumper and the coach who allowed her to take the field?
This question is answered by reading the league’s “regulations”. There is no provision to punish the team officials who should be held to account for putting McElroy on the field, exposing her, her team-mates, her opponents and her club to potential disaster had there been a serious injury — with no insurance cover — in that B-grade men’s game.
The KNTFL is not alone in this failure to review its regulations and bylaws to ensure they are relevant to today.
The Roast has noted the Adelaide Footy League was proactive — albeit amid some serious issues that played out in amateur football — to order a constitutional review of its books in 2016. It has significantly increased the penalties imposed on football club — now $5000 — to deal with major breaches of the league’s rules.
Adelaide Footy League chief John Kernahan referred to the McElroy case in his June 20 update to the clubs taking a controversy in one league as a reminder for his competition.
“It is opportune,” Kernahan wrote, “to offer some relativity that is sadly either getting missed or ignored by those who would rather believe there is some conspiracy to discriminate against the (McElroy), country footy or the Padthaway FC.
“The most salient considerations from our point of view are these:
“Whether there is, should be or will be a day when the game is played by both men and women in the same match is not the point. We’re open to any initiative that allows the game to be more accessible and we have long championed an argument that a hybrid type game that appeals to a wider participant in the community could be workshopped.
“In the days and weeks leading up to the match (on May 25), Casey and the Padthaway FC repeatedly asked the SANFL if she could play in the men’s team and the SANFL were unambiguous in their answer of no, going to great lengths to validate their answer by highlighting the inherent risks for proceeding as ineligible.
“In competition management speak, (Padthaway and McElroy) deliberately breached a regulation after not only being advised that she couldn’t play, but clearly being advised that if she took to the field neither she or the other male participants would be covered by any form of insurance should she injure herself or others and in turn put everyone else at risk.
“In short, the player was unregistered, not cleared and was subsequently ineligible to play.
“The Padthaway FC was not short on numbers or was the match at risk of being forfeited without Casey playing, as claimed. They had 20 players.
“Rules and regulations coupled with a constitution are the backbone of any organisation.
“We suspect those close to Casey in the Padthaway community in general would feel very differently if Casey badly injured herself and they were left to raise money for her rehabilitation for the short and long term because insurance would not cover her expenses.
“Rules and regulations are designed to protect everyone. They are designed to protect the club and league directors from public or directors liability that extend well beyond any financial considerations.
“But they are also designed to protect playing participants from themselves and it is league and club responsibility to enforce that.”
McElroy should not stand alone — as she did on entering Adelaide Oval for her tribunal hearing last week — to answer for what happened on May 25. And she should not be the lone soul paying a personal price in this saga.
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au