AFL must be transparent and act

The AFL faces a crisis it must confront this weekend – in the interests of players and the game itself. On Saturday, Jessica Halloran and Stephen Rice report evidence of former players with injuries of a kind that appear in the brain scans of car crash victims and active service soldiers. Injuries that ruin lives through physical and psychological disability that can end in suicide. Injuries that are linked to repetitive head impacts, not just concussion. Injuries that are a constant risk for elite AFL players.

Perhaps not all the dreadful cases Halloran and Rice describe are caused entirely by knocks on the footy field, but this is not the time for AFL administrators to deny or delay acknowledging the league must look after its own. And “own” includes the women’s league, which plays according to rules for men – there are already deaths and strokes among them.

It is in the interests of all players, the AFL and contact sport in general for sports administrators to examine exactly what the situation is and what can be done to reduce the risks of long-term harm. As things stand, parents will ask themselves this weekend whether their child’s great gift for AFL is worth the risk of a brain injury.

It has always been a fact of life that no contact sport can be completely free of risk. And our football codes represent an important physical and cultural part of our society. But those responsible for the code must adjust to new realities and medical understandings as they arise.

Players know they will take their share of knocks, but they have every right to expect the AFL to be transparent, accountable and compassionate in its dealing with players who suffer life-altering head injuries.