The Deafening Silence of the Moral Standard Setters

Last week former Carlton President John Elliott publicly stated that a number of women claimed to be raped by Carlton players during his time in charge of the Blues. “I think we had people who claimed to be raped by our players- women they were, not men- on four or five occasions” Elliott said. “Not once did any of those stories get into the press because in those days we probably had only twenty people writing in the press and they weren’t interested in all that sort of nonsense. We’d pay the sheilas off and wouldn’t hear another word.”

Elliott, among other atrocities, essentially admitted to obstructing justice whilst president of the Carlton Football Club. He said that the club paid the alleged victims- the “sheilas” in Elliot’s dated vernacular- $5,000 hush money in order to not only keep the matters of rape and sexual assault out of the newspapers but out of the charge sheets and the court transcripts.

Elliott didn’t make the revelations in any act of great contrition but rather in a boastful manner designed to highlight his skills as a football club president and political puppeteer. This prehistoric arrogance was only confirmed on his television show “Big Jack and Kouta” where he and his co-host laughed off the matter in a dismissive and condescending tone.

Elliott has not apologised to the community at large for his misogynistic comments nor has he offered any form of empathy to any of the women who made allegations of rape or sexual assault against players from the Carlton Football Club.

Nor, for that matter, have the AFL or the Carlton Football Club.

The AFL did not offer any response initially and then days later had Chief Executive Andrew Demetriou castigate Elliott by stating that Big Jack is not a spokesman for the AFL and that his attitudes are despicable and from a different era. The AFL did not offer to investigate the matter or to speak to any of the alleged victims. They merely directed victims to refer the matter to the police. Not a single utterance was made about the possible role of the AFL in the cover-up of sexual assault at AFL football clubs.

The Carlton Football Club has officially said nothing outside of the line that Jack Elliott no longer represents the Blues. Full forward Brendan Fevola pushed a similar barrow by stating that nobody at the club in 1999, when one particular case of sexual assault was alleged to have occurred, was still involved and that the focus was on the club’s upcoming match. No concern for the alleged victims, no admission that the entity could in anyway hold any responsibility.

One woman who was allegedly raped three days after the 1999 Grand Final by a Carlton player subsequently wrote to the Herald Sun stating vehemently that she did not accept any hush money. She stated that she never sought money nor was offered any. This point has not been refuted by anybody at Carlton. She allegedly agreed to have sex with one Carlton player and then woke up some hours later to find another Carlton player having sex with her. She went to the police who, according to current Victorian Police Commissioner Simon Overland, botched their investigation into the case. The woman spoke of her pursuit of justice. She did not name the player or players involved.

On the balance of probabilities, it certainly appears that at least one woman was the victim of sexual assault. Her case seemed to be strong enough for police to conduct an investigation and it was seemingly important enough to come to the attention then Assistant Police Commissioner Simon Overland. There is the possibility that more women were sexually assaulted by the Carlton Football Club. It has become apparent that a number of people are aware of at least one person involved in the case of Kate, the woman who wrote to the Herald Sun, including the former President of the football club. By his own admission, the club paid women who claimed they had been sexually assaulted to remain silent, essentially admitting to an obstruction of justice. The Carlton Football Club seemingly did not investigate the claims of the women and they certainly did not do so in a transparent and open manner. The AFL also did not investigate the sexual assault allegations in any public manner. Both the Carlton Football Club and the AFL have indicated that such allegations are a matter for the Victoria Police and that they will not be conducting any investigation into alleged sexual assaults at the Carlton Football Club in the 1980’s and 1990’s or the alleged subsequent cover-up. Neither club nor league have reached out to the alleged victims or offered to talk with them. The AFL has not sought to revoke John Elliott’s life membership. Neither have the Carlton Football Club. The investigation by the police was, by the admission of the now Commissioner, botched, meaning that the alleged perpetrator was not cleared of committing any crime. It also raises the question of John Elliott’s possible influence over the investigation and how indeed the investigation was botched.

So where has Tracy Grimshaw, so outraged at the behaviour of Matthew Johns and the Cronulla Sharks, been since this story broke? Why has Rebecca Wilson, dogmatic in her views of rugby league’s culture of sex and alcohol, not commented on the alleged rape of women at the Carlton Football Club over a week after John Elliot made his original utterances? Should we expect Sarah Ferguson, so ardent in her attack on the supposed code of silence in rugby league, to expose the culture of sexual assault and subsequent cover up in Australian Rules football? Will Jacquelin Magnay investigate with the same ferocity the culture of sexual violence in the AFL that she has approached the culture of sexual degradation and misogyny in the NRL?

The silence of those who were so quick to sink the slipper into rugby league and who were so vicious in their attack of the code in relation to John Elliott’s comments has been deafening. The double standards displayed would be shocking if such a differentiation in the treatment of rugby league and Australian Rules football wasn’t so engrained in Australian media circles. When it comes to media coverage, rugby league is a dog-fighting ring where AFL football is a nursery with a culture of protection.

Rugby league is an easy target and as such gets whipped like a cheap jumper who had failed on the flat. The sport is naturally more violent, the administration less professional, the bank coffers smaller and the culture of journalism in Sydney more confrontational. The AFL, by contrast, has branded itself as a family and female friendly sport where the ultra professional running of Australia’s richest code wields its influence and power to contain most negative off-field publicity. With a complicit Melbourne media who act as a protector of their sport- as opposed to the antagonist stance taken by their Sydney counterparts- the AFL gets a much cheaper ride.

The AFL rarely has its image tarnished by rash generalisations from vindictive or ill-informed columnists based on the actions of a few. It seldom is forced to endure vicious attacks on intangibles such as the culture and moral standing of the code. Actions from the past are seemingly not linked with the administrations of today. The AFL certainly doesn’t have to withstand the sustained assault on the integrity of the code that rugby league must deal with on a near-weekly basis. And that has very little to do with differing levels of behaviour between AFL and NRL players.

The moral indignation taken against any scandal in the NRL is missing when it comes to allegations of rape, hush money and cover-up in the AFL. The same media identities who attacked rugby league like rabid dogs have either been silent or much more even tempered when it comes to the latest scandal in the AFL.

Seemingly the size and power of the AFL, the limited salaciousness of the story due to the lack of a player’s name that no doubt has a negative impact on ratings and newspaper sales and the public relations work of the AFL have rendered public stances against sexual violence in football not as important as they were only a month ago when any journalist worth their long, boozy lunch felt compelled to condemn the sport of rugby league.

Roy Masters, the most eloquent and intelligent of rugby league commentators, rightly asked on Sunday’s Offsiders program on the ABC: which is the real code of silence? He received no answer from the remainder of the panel- all AFL apologists- but his point was well made. The AFL was being left unscathed in a situation that, if it occurred in rugby league, would have been a monstrosity of the highest order. Relative to the treatment the NRL received over the Sharks scandal of 2002, the AFL has not even been wrapped on the knuckles. It seems they are benefitting from being more competent in their silence than those on the rugby league side of the border.

There is absolutely no doubt that the Melbourne media are complicit in allowing the AFL to get away with such scandals. They push the AFL line. They don’t attack the AFL or the sport like the Sydney media go after the NRL and rugby league. They act as protectors of the sport. They go after the AFL on matters of administration, laws, business and finances but they don’t attempt to drive fans from the code as the Sydney newspaper columnists and editors do with their disgust and divide policy. They buy into the AFL and the image of the sport and as such rarely seek to hold the AFL to task over any off-field scandal. They certainly don’t correlate the behaviour of a minority to a systemic cultural problem inherent in the sport. Such attitudes are discarded when it comes to attacking a rival sport like rugby league with the same journalists happy to take the morally outraged position. The same journalists who derided rugby league after the Matthew Johns scandal certainly haven’t sought to hold the AFL responsible for John Elliott’s accusations despite the latter containing much more concerning allegations.

In the case of Jack Elliott’s admission of rape and subsequent cover-up, the Melbourne football media have been happy to run the AFL’s line that Elliott is a relic of a different era who doesn’t speak for the Carlton Football Club or the AFL. The AFL and the Carlton Football Club were different back then and as such cannot be held accountable for what may have gone on at the time. At no stage have the AFL been called on to investigate the claims made by Elliott. At no stage have the AFL been called on to investigate any potential pay-offs to alleged victims of sexual assault. At no stage have the AFL been held to task for not offering any form of assistance or support for the alleged victims. At no stage have the AFL been interrogated as to what they may have known about the allegations at the time. No journalistic investigation has taken place to attempt to uncover the names of those involved or the possible payment of any hush money. There has been no pursuit of blood, calls for resignations or accusations of a culture of sexual violence in AFL football. Elliott’s accusations certainly haven’t been front and back page news like the Matthew Johns scandal was.

Even those AFL journalists like Caroline Wilson and Patrick Smith who have examined the AFL’s response to Elliott’s claims have been tepid relative to the general reaction to any rugby league sex scandal and have even been more tempered in their thoughts than they have been when commenting on the NRL. Both have certainly painted the AFL more favourably by offering a comparison with the NRL. “Just when rugby league had a mortgage on such disgraceful incidents” Wilson deviously noted. “The credibility and the code was ridiculed to the point that the damage verged on the irreparable” Smith stated in his usual hyperbolic manner when discussing the Matthew Johns incident last week. Neither is prepared to call on the AFL to offer anything more than dissolvable lines of condemnation. Neither acknowledges that they themselves are complicit in the culture of cover-up in AFL football, the same culture that they are so critical of in the NRL. Both were morally outraged by Matthew Johns and the group sex scandal yet cannot act with the same vigour when it comes to allegations of rape and cover-up in their own sport.

Double standards exist in the Australian media and rugby league is certainly held to a higher mark than the AFL. The reasons are many but there is no doubt the double standards exist. Had John Elliott been the boss of an NRL club and subsequently made those comments, the Sydney media would have chased the story with unfettered enthusiasm and violence. And had Matthew Johns been an AFL player, it is doubtful his group sex encounter would have been put to air or published in newspapers.

It is foolish to think that AFL footballers are any better or worse behaved than their NRL counterparts. The only difference between the two codes in terms of player behaviour is that the AFL benefits from a more competent public relations department and a culture of protection from a complicit Melbourne media. There seems to be no doubt that if the Melbourne media went after AFL football with the same vigour as their Sydney counterparts go after the NRL, its image would be just as tarnished and the list of “player misbehaviour” would be just as long.

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