Pies’ Treloar trade a new low for an AFL club
Collingwood had no qualms separating families when it suited them, but now they’re punishing Adam Treloar for having a successful partner, writes Susie O’Brien.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
It’s a new low for an AFL club to punish a star player for having a partner with an equally successful career.
But that’s what’s happened to star former Collingwood player Adam Treloar.
Treloar’s fiancee’s job was used to justify moving him on in a brutal trade to the Western Bulldogs.
Collingwood had a $2 million salary cap problem. Years of bad trades and poor deals were taking their toll. The club had its eye on some new players but expensive stars like Treloar,
Jaidyn Stephenson and Tom Phillips were clogging up their list.
Then the club discovered that Treloar’s partner Kim Ravaillion, a champion netballer, had signed with the Queensland Firebirds.
This meant Ravaillion was moving up north with the couple’s baby daughter Georgie in January 2021 to start pre-season training.
Couched in faux concern for the player’s wellbeing – as these bogus decisions often are- negotiators argued Treloar wouldn’t be able to perform at his best without his wife and daughter by his side.
They also told him he no longer had the support of senior players – a claim Treloar doesn’t believe.
How patronising and humiliating.
Ravaillion is right that Treloar deserved more respect.
But so did she.
Treloar’s family situation and his fiancee’s job was none of Collinwood’s business and should not have been used against him in this way.
Collingwood and other clubs didn’t have any qualms about separating families this year when they sent players up to the Queensland hubs.
But they were happy to use the separation of this young couple for professional reasons when it suited them.
The club, like many others in the AFL, can’t handle two professional careers in a relationship – especially when the needs of the wife or partner comes up against the interests of the club.
The high status of AFL male footballers and the vast sums of money they are paid creates a power imbalance in footy couples that the AFL is happy to exploit.
Clubs rely on stars to be willing to move states and clubs to keep their careers going.
Most of the deals that move stars from club to club are done with little thought for how it might fit in with the professional or personal goals of other members of their family.
Remember the level of distain from commentators like Eddie McGuire for AFL players who shunned the Queensland hub because of their wife or partner had jobs back here?
Crows star Rory Sloane said he struggled with the idea of going into the hub because his wife Belinda’s job was important too. McGuire countered that: “He’s got 500,000 reasons why his job is more important than her job”.
It’s not as if Treloar and Ravaillion are the first sporting couple to have two successful careers.
They’re friends with Aussie Utah Jazz basketballer Joe Ingles and his wife Renae, who is a world champion netballer.
As Ingles tweeted last week, perhaps Collingwood needed help from his club to “figure out how to support two professional athletes in a relationship”.
Given the pay inequity between male AFL players and most of their partners, footy most often wins out and their partner or wife’s work is put on hold so they can be together.
Remember Lachie Neale’s Brownlow speech praising his wife Julie for selling her successful Perth beauty salon to follow him to Queensland?
But it’s not always the case.
Sometimes football families make tough decisions so they can keep two careers going, and they should be respected rather than exploited for doing so.
Treloar and Ravaillion were willing to be separated for the netball season so she could resume her sterling career after having a baby this year.
The young couple have said they thought it made sense to make the most of being at the peak of their sporting careers while they were young.
Luckily, Ravaillion — who is a Commonwealth Games gold medal winner — seems to have a healthy perspective on the issue.
“This is our life and our choice and we are going with it and we are excited about it,” she told the Herald Sun last week.
Why shouldn’t this talented young couple be excited? What’s three months or more apart when you have a lifetime together?
While the rest of us are admiring their commitment and love, Collingwood just saw it as a way to take advantage.
They should have bigger things on their mind, like how to treat their players and their families with respect.
Oh, and perhaps win a premiership.
BUCKLEY RESPONDS TO CRITICISM OVER TRELOAR
Originally published as Pies’ Treloar trade a new low for an AFL club
Join the conversation
Bolt: Is giving women special protection being gallant or a goof?
To have the Speaker of our federal parliament treat female politicians more gently than the men may seem like gallantry, but smacks of patronising. So what are the new rules?
Read more
Bolt: Albanese’s sheer incompetence making Australia less safe
A real prime minister would be outraged that a member of one of Gaza’s most prominent terrorist families has entered the country, and would say anyone with these reported connections is unwelcome. But Anthony Albanese has given up on leading.
Read more