Sporting journals spark court case

A leading sports psychologist has filed a court case against ­Adelaide United soccer club captain Stefan Mauk for breach of intellectual copyright.

Adelaide United captain Stefan Mauk. Picture: Getty Images

One of Australia’s leading sports psychologists and a part of Collingwood’s AFL game day staff has filed a court case against ­Adelaide United soccer club captain Stefan Mauk for breach of intellectual copyright.

Jacqui Louder, a qualified psychologist who sits on the bench during the Magpies matches to help players and coaches during games and plays a key role with rugby league’s Melbourne Storm, claims that Mauk, who was one of her clients, has taken her intellectual property and sold a program she developed as his own.

The footballer has been promoting a series of athletes diaries through his business, which she says rely on her original work. Mauk claims to have sold thousands of the journals and his website features Adelaide AFL young gun Xavier Duursma, its AFLW captain, Chelsea Randall, and Olympic runner Jess Stenson promoting his work.

He has said he wants to introduce the work to clubs, schools and develop an app.

Louder is well known in Melbourne sports circles and also works with Tennis Australia and Motorcycling Australia. She has worked in the past with the Victorian Institute of Sport and several other organisations.

The sports psychologist featured prominently in a documentary on Collingwood’s 2018 season, particularly her sessions with former Magpies player Adam Treloar as he faced a significant struggle.

The psychologist operates a consulting service at AAMI Park in Melbourne and developed an athlete assessment program that she has provided confidentially to athletes since 2009.

In papers lodged with the Federal Court on Friday Louder claims to have started consulting with Mauk in June 2019 where he was given a copy of her Confidential Sports Assessment Sheet and told it was “confidential and not to be disclosed to anyone”.

The psychologist is suing Fauk for financial loss and asking that he stop publishing the diaries sold under the Inner Game Journal banner on his website.

The document lodged at the Federal Court alleges misleading or deceptive conduct by Mauk in that he claims to have developed the assessment system citing claims taken from the footballer’s website.

“Mauk has spent years combining the information he has learned from books, psychologists, podcasts and professional football experiences to create his own journal,” the website says.

“I strongly believe the Inner Game Journals encompasses the best parts of all my learnings to help the current and next-gen of athletes to be the best version of themselves”.

Louder’s lawyers contacted the footballer twice in February asking him to stop marketing the journals.

Mauk acknowledged the ­influence Louder had in developing his journals in an interview with Adelaide United News last November.

In another interview he ­acknowledged it was Louder who “got me to start doing some assessment pre and post session which sounds very basic but something we never really got taught to do”.

He told The Australian on Friday he would not comment until he had read the claims.