The toxic code

My response to the question of what team I follow has long been something along the lines of "can we change the subject, you're making me feel uncomfortable right now."  It's fair to say I'm more bemused than entertained by football.

I find the tribal aspect of the game tiresome, especially when it meets with marketing, clogged roads at the weekend and drunken parties in the neighborhood.  The whole celebrity razzamatazz surrounding the players makes me wonder how far things can sink in a country where our needs extend well beyond the lavishing of bread and circuses.

The AFL has had its share of problem players in recent years.  Ben Cousins's brushes with the law have exposed an extremely seedy side of the lifestyle some of the higher-paid players are willing to embrace.  These would be the same young men the AFL promotes as role models to teenagers.

The last few weeks have brought a chain of events which are becoming more and more bizarre, and which suggest that football will soon be the cultural equivalent of a radioactive leak.

At the centre of the affair is an unnamed young lady who came into possession of a series of compromising photographs of a few players.  It seems that she met them at a school football clinic, and a chain of events that will no doubt soon become public proceeded from there.  Her motivation in making the photographs public is difficult to understand -- at first it was retribution for things going amiss in a personal relationship, but now it's turned into a spiral that threatens to bring the house down on the St Kilda football club.

Strange to say, Peter Costello came out with one of the more sensible comments about this whole sordid affair:

Footballers are not chosen for their moral principles. They do not go into a national draft for budding philanthropists. They can run and catch and kick a ball. What are the clubs thinking when they send them to schools to give guidance on life skills?

Costello was treated to a risible and lame attempt at a slapdown by Tony Abbott Mark Arbib (the resemblance between the two is uncanny).  Why the federal sports minister felt he had to go into bat for the philanthropic activities of the highly paid sports types is a mystery beyond my comprehension, so let's just assume he was making sure nobody got antsy about their tax-deductible status.

Costello's point is a very good one, but he refrained from pointing out the obvious problem in the middle of the whole affair.  Andrew Fraser had a piece in yesterday's Age which spelt out the problem that has evaded everyone else so far: the teenager at the centre of the affair is, "to all intents and purposes, a child."  He continues:

Children are supposed to have certain protection in society because it is considered by Parliament they are incapable of making adult decisions. Be under no misapprehension, this person is a child, irrespective of her physical appearance. As a person under 18, she cannot vote, drink or drive a car, all supposedly pursuits requiring a degree of maturity.

Of course, saying something like this to a free-spirited sixteen- or seventeen-year-old is a risky undertaking, but it is true nevertheless.  The girl claims to have fallen pregnant to one of the players.  This is the nub of the whole chain of events, as Fraser carries on:

We have the fact that appears undisputed - that a number of footballers had sex with her. Although she appears to be at the age of consent, many would still regard her as a minor.
I am shocked at the vituperative nature of the attacks upon her, yet on the other hand the footballers concerned seek sympathy for being foolish enough to jump into bed with her. Give me a break! They met her at a school footy clinic. They had sex with a child, no ifs, no buts. They don't deserve our sympathy.

Finally, Andrew Demetriou, chief executive of the AFL, has come out in print today.   He claims that a few things have been overlooked, such as the AFL's sharing community concern about recent events, and their commitment (evidenced in expert-backed programs) to ensuring that the game's culture does not condone violence against women.  Whatever the AFL has offered by way of support to the girl's family has clearly not been accepted so far.

It's hard to argue with such Panglossian bromides.  After all, they're the stock-in-trade of those who simply want a quiet life while believing they are truly making a difference.  There is one flaw in Demetriou's application of this approach.  He refers to football as an industry, then as a profession, by way of explaining why some players make such a foul mess of things:

I believe modern AFL players are more educated and socially aware than ever before. But like any group in the community, including doctors, lawyers and tradespeople, some will occasionally make mistakes. It's how they as individuals and we as an industry respond to those mistakes that's important.

 The last time I looked, football was still fundamentally a game.  The imposition of the idea of it being an industry is an ingredient in the current imbroglio.

If the men concerned were in any of our major social institutions, such as the police, education system, or the churches, there would be an instant outcry at such shameful and unprofessional conduct.  Calls for their rapid trial and imprisonment would be overwhelming.  The child abuse scandals in the Catholic Church turned on the habit many bishops had of moving offenders from one parish to the next, all the while denying knowledge of any wrongdoing.  It was an abdication of leadership and trust for which the Church is now paying -- and rightly -- a terrible price in lost goodwill and prestige.  Regaining the trust of people is now the work of many generations.  In places where the Church has been a central pillar of national identity, take Ireland for example, this trust may never be regained.  People will remember this for centuries.  The energy we see in the traditional liturgy movement in the Catholic Church is partly motivated by attempting to create structures of trust by insisting on a high doctrine of priesthood.  But even this cannot fill the massive credibility gap left by the revelations of the last thirty years.

If we expect football players to be role models to young people, then perhaps it would do no harm if a some were to find themselves in prison very soon.  There is no other cultural response available to the AFL for creating structures of trust so long as it defines itself as an industry.  Many good works may come from the players, but the present affair emanates from a school football clinic.  Problems with women and homophobia have been a feature of the AFL for a long time.  This has been recognized through the creation of codes of conduct and liaison officers, but these cannot answer the fundamental issue of players being led to believe there will be no negative consequences for borderline or criminal behavior.  The AFL's response to the Ben Cousins affair was to allow him to be drafted to another team in a different state.  Shifting problem players around is an established part of the AFL culture.  When things go wrong, the defense is invariably a variation on the theme 'boys will be boys.'

This is the attitude of an institution with a toxic culture.  It does not deserve the trust and loyalty of the people who pay their annual dues.  One can only hope that the whole edifice comes tumbling down very soon.