Footballers are not the victims here: Why the AFLPA’s Giants statement landed out on the full

On Friday, as the public absorbed the not-so-fine details of how several Giants footballers had performed a series of appalling skits at their end-of-season party, the AFL Players’ Association issued a contentious statement that angered the AFL and drew a measure of incredulity from some at club level.

The players’ union is freighted with the onerous task of defending players, irrespective of rights and wrongs, seeking to minimise the punishments doled out by the lawyers at AFL headquarters. In this role, they resemble the Police Association.

GWS player Josh Fahey was suspended for four matches.Credit: Getty Images

On this measure of acting for the players, the union did its job in the manner of a nimble barrister securing the best outcome for a guilty client. Players who had been slated to get heftier suspensions or fines had those initial offers downgraded. Quietly, the Giants were also hoping for leniency.

The most noteworthy downgrades were the penalties to Connor Idun, whose sanction for enacting a scene from the movie Django Unchained was cut from a two-match ban to a $5000 fine, and to Josh Fahey, the young player whose ban was reduced from six matches to four for the skit in which he played the part of rugby league player Jarryd Hayne in tandem with a blow-up doll.

Fahey’s skit was viewed, rightly, as the most egregious, given that Hayne was convicted of rape before the conviction was overturned. As one AFL observer noted, Fahey’s skit did not enact the overturning of the verdict. Worse, Fahey was at one stage naked during the skit, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

That the AFLPA pushed for these lighter penalties is reasonable given its mission of acting in players’ interests (Idun, a man with Ghanaian heritage, himself made a strong submission regarding Django Unchained).

But the statement that followed the AFL’s announcement of punishments did not hit the mark. As far as statements go, this one – attributed to AFLPA chief executive Paul Marsh – went out on the full.

It started on the right course – accepting that the behaviour of the sanctioned Giants“is unacceptable and raises important matters of respect, inclusion and safety” while acknowledging the hurt to the AFLW players “and any other people impacted by this issue.”

But Marsh’s statement quickly moves to shift the onus of responsibility from the players themselves towards the clubs, the AFL and an amorphous “culture” – as if any of those parties, or forces, compelled Fahey to take off his clothes, or for another player to dress as basketballer Josh Giddey (or a teammate as an accompanying young female).

Marsh goes further to say that the union raised concerns about the AFL’s “commitment to cultural change within the industry, the process undertaken by the AFL, the proportionality and consistency of their sanctioning, the lack of a sanctioning framework despite repeatedly raising this with the AFL, and an inconsistent approach to how player leaders have been dealt with as compared to the broader club leaders.”

Marsh adds that “we have had too many cultural issues and we have not worked hard enough to set and role model the standards expected.”

The pinnacle is reached in the next sentence: “This does not excuse individual choices and decisions but they are not made in a vacuum. For many years, the industry has walked past this type of behaviour and accepted it as a part of footy culture, and this is the culture that we all are now responsible for. We include players, clubs, the AFL and the AFLPA in this.”

Everyone in footy’s ecosystem understands that players will stick up for each other. But the underlying takeout in Marsh’s release is that the players are making these monumental “cultural” blunders because of a system or culture, rather than their own stupidity.

The players sat through an education session on gendered violence from Our Watch chief executive and Carlton vice president Patty Kinnersly earlier this year. Were some asleep?

For Marsh, individual choices cannot be excused, “but they are not made in a vacuum”. Alas, the vacuum here seems to exist between the ears of players.

This whataboutism, or attempt to deflect responsibility, followed another verbal contortion over the suspensions of Jeremy Finlayson (Port), Wil Powell (Gold Coast) and Lance Collard (St Kilda) for homophobic comments on the field. One of the union’s major objections is that club officials (read Alastair Clarkson, Jeff Kennett and Eddie McGuire) have been treated leniently compared with players.

When Collard was banned, the AFLPA invoked the concept of “human rights” while complaining about the severity (six games) of the suspension. In that case, the victims were gay and lesbian people, not Collard.

“Human rights” is the kind of terminology we associate with people being butchered, locked up without trial or denied the vote. It is the language of oppression, the remit of Amnesty International.

To use oppression terminology for footballers who make an average of $400,000-plus and are afforded so many advantages compared with, say, healthcare workers, meat packers or teens at McDonald’s, is a misreading of the play. They courageously risk their bodies, but they do so willingly.

Marsh concludes with a clarion call for fairer processes for players in these AFL-run investigations and for consistent sentencing. He notes that players were interviewed without access to “independent support” (eg lawyers), that the AFL “imposed unreasonable timeframes” on accepting sanctions, and that the sentences were “disproportionate.”

Disproportionate compared to Clarkson (handed a two-match suspended sentence for inappropriate remarks to St Kilda players), maybe.

But the sanctions were not disproportionate relative to community standards. How many professionals in CBD offices would survive such antics as the Hayne skit at a work function? Or Taylor Walker’s racial vilifying of an Indigenous player?

If the ALFPA merely defended the players and said GWS deserved sanction, fair enough. One can mount a case that the club failed to control an event that spiralled into untrammelled misogyny. Like Toby Greene and his leaders, these were sins of omission, not commission.

Those who have the right to feel aggrieved – and whose interests are paramount here – are the AFLW players and women throughout the industry, not the sanctioned.

The AFL rarely bites back at AFLPA statements. This was an exception. “Making light of any gender-based violence is not acceptable in any setting at any time,” said the AFL. “Both the club and the players have acknowledged that and own the accountability. Respect is not an option, it is a non-negotiable and we will continue to work until everyone in our game understands that.”

Historically, the AFLPA has defended all manner of miscreants in offences even worse than GWS’ wacky Wednesday. It is their job. But to yell from the rooftop, in asserting a travesty of justice, was an overreach.

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.