Folau case to force athlete rethink, former teammate Petero Civoniceva says

One of Folau’s former teammates says the controversy will forever change players’ social media use.

Petero Civoniceva and Israel Folau both represented Queensland in State of Origin.

One of Australia’s most respected sportsmen, Petero Civoniceva, has described the fallout from the Israel Folau controversy as a watershed moment for Australian sport that would forever change the way players used social media.

As the former Wallaby star builds a multimillion-dollar fighting fund to take on Rugby Australia over his torn up contract, Civoniceva said clubs and codes benefited from players’ “personal brands” and personal social media pages.

But he said the Folau matter would force a major rethink on how those sites were used and what players could post.

Petero Civoniceva last month. Picture: Annette Dew

“There’s an understanding from a player’s perspective of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, but this is a very interesting one because I don’t think we’ve ever had a player who for their own personal viewpoint is under the spotlight like this,” said Civoniceva, Australia’s most capped rugby league forward, and Maroons assistant coach.

“Is there now a stop sign before athletes post anything about their own personal viewpoints and how does that impact on the codes and the clubs the represent?

“Obviously social media is such an important tool for promoting the game and promoting players but now with this it means there’s a line you can’t cross.”

He said the great majority of athletes did a fine job of managing social media for their benefit and that of their sport.

“But now if athletes have a personal viewpoint, It’s going to be interesting to see how hard you can express that viewpoint,” said Civoniceva.

Although he saw merit to both sides of the argument, he believed anyone should be able to enjoy sport without feeling ostracised because of “religion, race or sex”.

“I guess this highlights something we haven’t seen before in any sporting code,” he said.

“It’s going to be very interesting to see what precedent gets set from this point moving forward for athletes, and whether that extends to other people like politicians and teachers.”

It was likely clubs would take a no-tolerance approach to players who expressed different viewpoints from that promoted by the sporting code, Civoniceva said.

“There’s an understanding now that if (a player’s) viewpoint is different from the code themselves, social media is not the place for them. So again, it’s going to be interesting to see how it all plays out.”