Football abuse claims: Matildas investigation cleared for early start after landmark agreement reached
As the big stars return home for a two-match series with Brazil, an agreement has been reached on the investigation into Australian football’s dirty secrets - and it’s sure to be explosive.
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The investigation into the shocking behavioural problems in Australian football will begin as early as this week, coinciding with the return home of the Matildas’ biggest stars for the upcoming series against Brazil.
A formal announcement is expected in the coming days but Football Australia have already struck a deal with Sport Integrity Australia on a framework for the probe.
The full details are still under wraps but it can be revealed the investigation will focus on four specific areas of misconduct: bullying, harassment, intimidation and discrimination.
It will look at all levels of the game, from grassroots to elite, both male and female, from historical to current complaints.
The federal government-backed sporting watchdog will run the entire investigation independently of FA, but the sport’s officials will accept and implement SIA’s rulings and recommendations, including taking punitive action against anyone found to have misbehaved.
“It‘s about inappropriate behaviours and about changing inappropriate behaviours,” FA chief executive James Johnson said.
“There‘ll be a window of several months in which matters can be brought to Sport Integrity Australia and investigated independently.
“Our role as FA will be to promote the process to our community, to invite and support the complaints coming forward in the process.
“We won‘t have anything to do with the investigation, it’ll be at arm’s length.”
Johnson confirmed the inquiry will investigate the serious allegations of abuse from Matildas’ legend Lisa De Vanna, that brought the issue to the public‘s attention.
De Vanna has been heavily critical of FA, claiming in her latest explosive column there is a toxic culture from grassroots to elite level that is still happening inside the Matildas.
Johnson says there’s no evidence to support her claims but he will forward all her allegations to SIA and FA will follow through with any recommendations, pending the outcome of any appeals to the National Sports Tribunal.
“It will be an independent investigation and there will be sanctions that FA will enforce for those who have engaged in inappropriate behaviour. There will be no exceptions,” Johnson said.
“Our objective is really to do two things. One is to provide victims with an independent body and an independent process so they can feel at ease to come forward. And secondly, it‘s to call out and stamp out behaviour that is inappropriate in football.
“The sport‘s been around for 100 years, and this is the first time that such a system has been set up in our sport. We’re a new administration and we’re determined to confront the issue head on.”
Johnson has strongly denied any suggestions the FA covered up De Vanna’s complaints, saying that he was unaware of what allegedly happened to her before she went public with her claims.
But he said he had already started talking to SIA boss David Sharpe about best-practice models for dealing with inappropriate behaviour cases after a sexual abuse scandal broke in the United States earlier this month.
He also said FA was taking steps to support everyone who had been impacted by the reports, including De Vanna and all the other women who had come forward with their complaints, as well as past and present members of the Matildas.
Many of the top players are based overseas but are returning to Australia this week for two friendlies against Brazil in western Sydney.
He said an offer had been made to provide wellbeing support to anyone who wanted it, while the FA had also launched its own investigation to tackle some of the vile abuse being posted on social media.
“It‘s obviously inappropriate, and it’s been against the players who have spoken out, such as Lisa, but it’s also been against our current and former Matildas,” Johnson said.
“We have reported inappropriate, and in some cases illegal conduct, to the highest level and head offices of certain social media platforms.
“We‘ve also contacted the eSafety commissioner, and in another case the police, for certain social media activity that may even be of a criminal nature.
“Consequently, there are several burner accounts on social media that have been shut down.”
‘Call in the cops’: Coates lashes blind eye sport bodies
Australian Olympic supremo John Coates says it’s time for sporting bodies to stop turning a blind eye to allegations of serious abuse including sexual assault and just call in the cops.
Alarmed by the mounting number of athletes going public with their grievances because they don’t trust their own sports, Coates lashed out at national federations still dragging their heels about taking action, saying they had already been warned to hand over complaints to the proper authorities.
“Anyone who brings an example of this to us, if it‘s a criminal matter, it’ll go straight to the police,” he said.
“The key to all of this is going outside the national federation or the Australian Olympic Committee and having an investigation and not trying to put it under the carpet.”
Addressing the National Press Club, Coates said there no excuses for Australian sporting federations that were still unsure about what to do after sports were hauled before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
That led to a number of perpetrators being charged with criminal offences and banned from their sports as well as a national apology from the federal government but the message, seemingly still hasn’t got through to everyone.
“I‘d hoped that that would have been the lesson for the sports,” Coates said.
“But it seems our member sports are still as a whole to come to grips with this to understand that there is an obligation on all of us, the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) as well.
“We have to provide a safe environment for people wanting to practise sport.
“Sadly, evidence is coming out that over the years that hasn‘t happened.”
In the past year alone, dozens of Australian female athletes, including gymnasts, swimmers, hockey players and now footballers, have gone public alleging they were abused.
There have been horrific cases of athletes, many of them young, being molested, abused and bullied by the same people who were supposed to protect them.
There have also been deeply disturbing claims of body-shaming, harassment and intimidation that have led to players developing serious eating disorders, self-harming and quitting their sports.
Whistleblowers have described the number of cases and cover ups as a national shame that is reaching epidemic levels.
The Matildas, arguably Australia’s most popular female sporting brand, are just the latest team to be caught up in it all, prompting Socceroos legend Robbie Slater to call for another Royal Commission.
Coates stopped short of that but did reiterate his belief that all complaints need to be heard by Sport Integrity Australia (SIA).
Formerly the Australian Sports Anti‑Doping Authority, SIA’s investigative powers have been widened to hear and act on complaints independently and confidentially. It received over 600 in its first year of operation.
“I‘m very pleased and I commend the Australian government for that,” Coates said.
In a wide-ranging address, Coates also dismissed suggestions the IOC should move next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics to another country because of complaints about China’s human rights records.
“That’s not within our remit,” he said.
“We have no ability to go into a country and tell them what to do.
“We are not a world government. We have to respect the sovereignty of the countries who are hosting the Games.”
Coates said Australia was planning to send 41 athletes to the Winter Olympics and nine to the Paralympics.
Abuse crisis: How FA will fix broken system
Football Australia’s new boss has vowed to overhaul the way the sport deals with serious integrity issues after admitting the existing protocols for lodging and investigating complaints just aren’t working.
Stung by the bombshell allegations from former players about the horrific abuse they experienced, FA chief executive James Johnson has promised to implement a bold, new get-tough approach to handling reports about sexual harassment and bullying in the game.
In an exclusive tell-all interview with News Corp, Johnson outlined the plans he hopes will not only help football better deal with issues but also set an example for other major Australian sports to follow:
* Changing the entire reporting process so that complaints are heard independently and transparently;
* Agreeing to enforce any recommendations that Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) makes from the complaints they investigate;
* Taking swift and strong action against anyone found to have behaved inappropriately, regardless of what role they hold;
* Keeping football’s world governing body FIFA up to speed with the crisis;
* Directly consulting with the Matildas about the players’ response to allegations.
The sceptics will of course remember that FA – under its previous guises as Soccer Australia and FFA – has made similar promises to clean up its act before and failed to deliver but there is genuine cause to believe things may be different this time under new management and changing community expectations.
Johnson, who was appointed to the CEO role only last year, already has a reputation as a crime-buster from his previous roles with FIFA, where he played a part in the investigations that led to life bans for former Asian football chiefs Mohammed bin Hammam, Manilal Fernando and Ganesh Thapa.
Unlike previous administrators who have dragged their heels by insisting on overseeing investigations themselves, within 24 hours of Lisa De Vanna’s story breaking, Johnson broke ground by agreeing to hand over the entire inquiry to SIA to ensure it is fully independent and spoke out strongly in support of Lisa De Vanna, Rhali Dobson and the other players who came forward with complaints.
“We’ve got to be proactive. We’ve got to be progressive. We’ve got to be transparent,” he explained.
“Once that’s done and once people not only hear it in statements, but see it and feel it and understand it on the ground, I think that will breathe life into what we’re saying.”
BROKEN MODEL
Like all major Australian sporting organisations, FA already has all its own integrity units and policies and complaint reporting protocols. But they’re already outdated, according to Johnson.
The consistent takeaway from almost every high-profile abuse case in the past two years is that athletes don’t feel safe complaining to the sports they are in, which is why Johnson says FA’s new process has to be entirely independent and transparent.
“The standard at the moment is for these complaints or these claims to be dealt with in-house,” Johnson said.
“What we’re seeing at the moment is that this standard and the expectation of the community is actually evolving right around us as we speak … and the expectation that is set on sporting organisations at the moment is that these issues need to be dealt with independently.”
TOUGH ACTION
FA has also been accused in the past of sweeping things under the carpet, most recently with the last review, two years ago, into the sacking of Matildas coach Alen Stajcic.
It has been revealed that neither Stajcic or any of the players were interviewed during that review, so no serious actions were taken, other than a few future recommendations.
But Johnson said that under his tough, new plans, if the investigation into the latest claims finds anyone stepped out of line, the reponse will be immediate.
“That’s what I’m intending to find out through this independent investigation,” he said.
“Because if there are issues where reports have been made in the past and they weren’t dealt with, that should come out in an independent review of these issues.
“If there has been behaviour that doesn’t meet the standards expected by Football Australia or the community and it’s a breach of our rules, then there will be action taken.
“We will act decisively, we’ll act quickly. And if there are people that have done the wrong thing, there will be consequences for those actions.”
WORLDWIDE NEWS
With the allegations making headlines all over the world, the claims also come at a sensitive time for FA with Australia and New Zealand locked in to co-host the women’s World Cup in 2023. So Johnson was straight on the phone to the world’s governing body FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation to update them on all the changes.
“We were very clear with both organisations that this is something that we take seriously and we want to take a lead here and actually do something proactive and also progressive,” he said.
“We told them that there would be an investigation. We also told them that it will be done by Sport Integrity Australia and that we’re already in touch with Sporting Integrity Australia.
“We also said that the enforcement, provided it’s not criminal of course, will still be done within the sport but there was an agreement with Sport Integrity Australia, that whatever recommendation was given to them by us, that there’d be no scope for us to decide whether or not we should do what we will do.”
CODE OF SILENCE
The Matildas have been conspicuously quiet since De Vanna went public with her claims, leading to speculation they had either been gagged or did not support their former teammates who broke the unspoken code of silence that exists in many sports.
There have also been suggestions the players are planning not to co-operate with the indecent inquiry but Johnson dispelled the speculation after speaking with some of the Matildas himself.
“We are in touch with the current Matildas because we want to make sure that their wellbeing is OK because this has had a big emotional impact on the current Matildas and we are concerned about their welfare,” he said.
“I personally spoke to (captain) Sam (Kerr) and our team here is speaking regularly to the current Matildas, as well as (coach) Tony Gustavsson to ensure that they’ve got the right level of support around them through this difficult period.
“I think you’ll find that the team will say something, but that’s something that we’re not pushing or promoting or steering. This is something that if the players want to speak up, we want them to be aware that we would support them to do so and certainly not be against it.
“The conversations that I’ve been involved in with the Matildas, the first thing they’ve done is they’ve shown they have shown genuine empathy towards the girls that have come out.
“They’ve told me that that is a historical issue that doesn’t represent the way they feel about the team at the moment, but they’re absolutely going to co-operate with SIA if required. That’s coming from the team, they’re very, very mature about this whole scenario.”
DO YOU KNOW MORE? CONTACT Julian.Linden@news.com.au and Selina.Steele@news.com.au
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