There seems to be a habit among sporting clubs, leagues and teams, of handling crises poorly. No league more so than the Australian Football League (AFL). This pinnacle of Australian sports and culture is no stranger to media spectacles and public outcry against many infamous incidents over the years. In 1992 during Adelaide’s preseason, Nigel “notso” Smart walked across hot coals and subsequently missed seven games due to his injuries. Aside from more ridiculous and ultimately amusing events, the AFL has also been the topic of more serious concerns, namely the countless sexual assault allegations levelled at players and staff across its 18 clubs. Their continued association with violence against women reveals the culture of misogyny embedded within the sport, and raises concerns for the league’s continuous poor management of and response to more serious incidents in public address. Sports clubs are simply not good at acknowledging the wider impact such crises have upon their communities and as a result have failed them time and time again. Despite this, the League itself (the AFL) seems more than happy to handball the issue over to the clubs. 

The shocking August incident implicating Sydney Swans players has raised questions about the AFL’s handling of crises once again. The team was staying at the Pullman Hotel when a sexual assault against a group of women was alleged on the premises. Five players are said to be involved and are currently under criminal investigation. An ongoing Victoria Police Sex Crimes Squad investigation into the nature of the incident began to take shape, and fans and brand partners waited with bated breath to see if the league would fall into its old cycle of underdelivering when it mattered most. If history was to repeat, the AFL would remain silent while the club wheeled out a disappointing “club statement”, the typical way of handling any form of media crisis in sports. A club will call a press conference and haul out a couple of key officials to make superficial claims about “principles” (and how players have failed to meet them). They’ll address the stakeholders, as any good business does, and proceed to not elaborate beyond the necessities. Then they’ll typically publish a written rundown of their views on their website and rinse their hands. But the Sydney Swans club statement on 18 August was surprisingly comprehensive in its professional empathy. 

The Swans’ statement addressed the alleged victims, established that there would be sanctions of some kind for offending players, and even went so far as to note that this incident may affect their AFLW side. However, this was chucked in as an afterthought, and they added at the end of their lengthy paragraph, "we acknowledge the impact these allegations may have on our female athletes, staff members and the wider community." A sentence that might be the understatement of the year. 

The Swans have since taken strong action against the behaviour in its playing group, stronger than many expected given the footy tradition of brushing over such claims. Despite the media’s commentary, there was no consideration of the club's Premiership ambitions in deciding penalties. The Swans decisively suspended all involved players for the remainder of the season and consequently, the controversy spiralled into a discussion of football implications, as commentators failed to respect the seriousness of the incident. Media coverage focused on how the incident would affect the AFL season, rather than a concern for the misogynistic behaviour it seems to normalise. Kane Cornes’ comments on the situation during the Channel 7 program “The Agenda Setters” outrageously opened with, “That behaviour and those actions, when you’re two weeks away from a finals series…”. There was a concerning inability from pundits to recognise the players’ responsibilities as public figures, and the criticism towards commentators overshadowed the impact this saga has had on football culture as a whole. The media distracted from key factors of the incident instead of scrutinising, allowing elements like the sanctions being for the players’ partying and drinking rather than any alleged offence, to go relatively unnoticed. In fact, the Swans’ treatment of the incident has been far less criticised than the surrounding media discourse. 

With the Swans’ statement and sanctions accounted for, all that was left was the AFL’s statement. AFL CEO Andrew Dillon constructed a concise statement that successfully reiterated everything the club had already said. Professional, simple and easy. But the AFL, like the Major League Baseball and National Football League in the United States, is the premiere league for the sport. AFL teams are the strongest Aussie Rules teams in the world. There is no other league in the world that could field a team to even compete with the Brisbane Lions or Fremantle Dockers. The AFL is so tied to its sport that the league's name is often used to refer to the sport itself. In this role, it holds a unique responsibility to steer the sport towards a future that is inclusive at all levels and age groups. This role wasn’t addressed remotely by the AFL in the wake of the recent Swans incident.

The AFL is more than happy to promote and flaunt the impact its league has on junior footy when it’s positive. In December it boasted its involvement in the rapid growth of women's Australian football. From 2024 to 2025, the AFL reported a year-on-year participation increase of 14 per cent. This was exciting growth for a sport that struggles against a “boy’s club” mentality and traditional gender norms. These aren’t statistics gathered and put forward by a secondary body, this is a statement constructed by the AFL itself, posted to its website. The AFL is more than willing to make statements, just not about controversy. 

With this in mind, the Sydney Swans allegations could genuinely affect participation in junior women’s footy. Will the AFL claim responsibility for this too? Since August, reading a headline about the AFL has often meant reading a headline about an instance of sexual violence. With Victoria’s victim report statistics underlining the fact that sexual assault is most often perpetrated against young women and girls, exposing young girls to a sporting league where this kind of violence is becoming normalised will likely hinder participation. It could also make them fearful of the AFL sporting culture as a whole which is becoming synonymous with misogynistic behaviour. 

The possibility of the AFL not being aware of this concern facing young women should be unlikely. It should also be approached as a concern when addressing the shocking drop in sports participation for young girls as they reach maturity. According to the Australian Sports Commission, participation from young women drops from 45 per cent to 32 per cent between the ages of 15 and 17, across all sports in Australia. The statistic continues to decline as they get older and enter their twenties, indicating many young women step away from their sport at that age and do not return. While there are numerous factors for this sudden decline in participation, The Women’s Sporting Foundation found that this global trend is mainly driven by financial costs, unsupportive environments and the sense that women’s sports aren’t valued equally to men's. Young girls see and feel these issues daily and yet the AFL cannot seem to address them when it matters most. 

The AFL has failed to make the connection between the Swans incident and young women dreaming of becoming footy players. Including this age and gender category is the key to shifting footy culture away from its misogynistic past. Without young girls, footy is a “boy’s club,” and without positive role models, misogyny will continue to fester in all footy clubs around the country. 

As celebrities and role models, AFL players are often the subject of intense media scrutiny, influencing their clubs and leagues through reports on alleged behaviour. Scrutiny of this kind is important to maintain standards of conduct and to establish a football culture that is inclusive. Many clubs of all levels continue to neglect women's and girl’s teams to prioritise their male counterparts. This has impacted their experiences through actions like giving women’s teams impractical game times and making them use old clubrooms. Girls are pushed from the sport across the country every year, and it is a responsibility of AFL clubs to set the tone. For young female footy players across Australia, the support of your teammates and coaches only goes so far when your role models and clubs seem to have forgotten you. 

More girls should be encouraged to play sports, especially ones that are iconically Australian. When the AFL and its clubs fail to address the impact of events like the Swans controversy have upon young girls, they show a lack of care towards the future of AFL. At the very least, statements made by the AFL leadership should have directly addressed the effect this may have on young girls. I feel that this should’ve been the time to promote women’s football games and to work harder in creating more nationwide junior initiatives and programs. It is undeniable that this incident, and many others of the same nature, have perpetuated a general victimisation of women. The reporting around it continues to exclusively conflate such victimhood with footy as the two concepts are mentioned in the same breath. Without even an acknowledgement of this impact, I believe the AFL have shown that they do not possess the care to grow the sport culturally. 

I’m glad the Swans’ club statement acknowledged that their AFLW team may be uncomfortable with the fact that their peers could have perpetrated sexual violence against other women. But I’m upset the AFL seems to have forgotten every footy-playing girl across the country that may now also be uncomfortable. Uneasy that the boy’s team on the other pitch has heroes who are under police investigation for violating a group of women. Telling these young girls that they are welcome and seen is the bare minimum for the “greatest” footy league in the world.

Photograph by Saria Ratnam