Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Australia House was a fitting venue to learn the truth about Australians and sport.
The beaux-arts building was built in 1918 as a young nation’s imposing statement of intent in the heart of London, and nearly a century later, the grand building housing our high commission hosted the Australian cricket team on the eve of the Ashes.
London in July 2005 was elation and horror. On Wednesday, July 6, the city was awarded the 2012 Olympics. Jubilant crowds thronged Trafalgar Square until late into the evening.
The very next morning four Islamist terrorists set off homemade bombs in backpacks, killing 52 innocent souls on their way to work; more than 700 were injured.
Nearly two weeks later, cricket captain Ricky Ponting stepped with his team into Australia House’s Exhibition Hall (so grand that it was Gringotts Wizarding Bank in the Harry Potter films), for a reception hosted by high commissioner Richard Alston.
The cream of Australia’s business, diplomatic, cultural, sporting and media communities were there to meet them. And me.
Three things stood out.
Ricky Ponting, whom I had previously dismissed as a bit of a dropkick after he was clocked in the face at the Bourbon and Beefsteak after a late night bender and ended up with a black eye, gave an incredible speech to a room that was trying to keep it together in the wake of the killings. He talked about mutual respect between the two nations and deep solidarity with the victims and bereaved families. He totally met the moment.
A lanky young cricketer with peroxided hair and a diamond earring uncomfortably leaned against a back wall. I thought about trying to engage, but he seemed too shy. But it was the invited guests who were really fascinating. The Aussie captains of industry seemed to regress before my eyes and turn into schoolboys, producing toy wooden cricket bats and nervously submitting to men decades younger than they were to request their autographs. It was a complete demonstration of star power. And the cricketers weren’t even trying.
Fast-forward two decades and our attitude to our stars is exactly the same.
Kids hanging over the MCG fence desperate to attract the attention of their team warming up before a Thursday-night match.
A tradie doing some work for Billy Brownless’ flat saying goodbye with a handshake and hesitantly asking for a selfie. Tom Lynch moving seats at the Oasis concert at Marvel last November after getting hassled by a fan who kept taking pictures.
The scrutiny and demands remain intense. Which explains in part why the reaction against the Swans players after the Pullman hotel scandal was so massive. A night on the town, a very late return to the team hotel, women invited over, reports of drugs in the room, distressed women, allegations of sexual assault, a police investigation, five players suspended for breaching club standards, no charges laid (as yet).
As Malcolm Knox wrote in this masthead: “Swans fans feel like they’ve been made fools of. Penance can be paid and redemption earned, but you could never look the same at Tiger Woods or Ben Stokes or Wayne Carey or Michael Slater once you saw behind the veil.
“All those women Swans fans I know are disgusted.”
It was easy to share the anger of the fans. It fuelled a dreadful suspicion within me – that away from all the polite interviews and brand endorsements and charity initiatives – behind closed door this is what men are still really like.
Former Sunday Age health journalist Jill Stark lamented in The Guardian that “any alleged victims have largely been erased” from the conversation by male commentators in the wake of the Swans incident and sexual assault allegations.
We still don’t know very much, and outraged we continue to be. In massive numbers. This masthead’s online coverage attracted more readers than once-were-royals Harry and Meghan’s visit. More readers than the US-Iran war skirmishes.
Rarely in the media has so much been written, podcast, posted, tweeted, TikToked about something when we still don’t know what really happened.
Nature abhors a vacuum, but the media bloody loves it. And in the online world, speculation and strident opinion are the value currencies.
The AFL is the biggest game in town. Seven’s AFL coverage has reached 15.5 million Australians across the 2026 season.
Thus, it is also the biggest platform to clamber upon. Helping to serve up content are about 2400 accredited media. And countless more in a diaspora of digital commentariat podding and tweeting and posting to their hearts’ content.
And plenty has been said about the brand damage to the players, the club and the AFL. If the Swans make it through to the grand final, it would be a huge embarrassment for the AFL.
But time and time again, off-the-record interviews and conversations I had about the state of the AFL and reputation damage diverted down a different path: AFL drug policy.
Police sources have suggested drugs were present at the Pullman, but it is not suggested that the players brought them or consumed them.
In the aftermath, there are broadly two contentions about AFL drug policy: the AFL policy on drugs is appalling and not a deterrent and leading to increased drug use.
Against this: the AFL is trying to help players repair themselves without destroying their lives. Drugs are everywhere. Society should stop outsourcing solutions of guidance on its problems to the AFL, expecting it to take the lead. Ronald and Nancy Reagan failed to win the war on drugs so don’t expect Andrew Dillon and Craig Drummond to.
Rana Hussain, a Basketball Australia director and inclusion consultant, was one of many who highlighted AFL cultural problems around women. She wrote that more than one in five Australian women aged 15 and over have experienced sexual violence. The figure comes from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
And according to the same source, one in seven Australians have tried cocaine. And the peak group for most recent use (use in the past year) is, you guessed it, 20-to-29-year-olds – the age of most AFL players.
It is astonishing to do a ring around the AFL ecosystem on the basis of a frank off-the-record conversation and listen to the thoughts on the topic of illegal drugs.
“Honestly, they all do this.
“The conversation no one is having is the prolific recreational drug use in the AFL. There is a cohort at every club doing recreational drugs in season.
“There’s this horrible illicit drugs policy that doesn’t identify people. It is not a deterrent.”
It was two years ago that independent MP Andrew Wilkie made bombshell allegations in federal parliament that the AFL was covering up illicit cocaine use among players.
The AFL was cleared by Sport Integrity Australia, which urged changes to the system.
A new policy is in the final stages of negotiation between the AFL and AFL Players’ Association and due to come online for 2027.
Voluntary out-of-competition testing is part of it, but basically, if a player tests positive to an illicit drug, that news is confined to a club doctor, and they are placed on a behaviour-change program. A second consecutive positive test can lead to a management plan. The focus and philosophy is harm reduction with an emphasis on wellbeing. Club medical staff are told, club management may not be.
If club confidentiality is breached, a maximum fine of $250,000 may be levied.
The Illicit Drugs Policy is voluntarily agreed between the players association and AFL. Separately, the AFL Anti-Doping code governing game-day testing for performance-enhancing drugs replicates the World Anti-Doping Agency code. But if a player tests positive for an illicit drug on game day they can be rubbed out of competition for years, as some illicit drugs act as stimulants and may be deemed performance enhancing under the WADA code.
Players publicly caught using drugs will be suspended for two to four matches.
And while it is uncertain that what happened at the Pullman will end up in court, the court of opinion – along with the Swans – has already issued its ruling.
Former Swans vice captain Isaac Heeney has been uninvited from the Brownlow Medal count, but can’t be cancelled from the competition without collapsing it. He is expected to do well, particularly in that fateful Round 23 match against Essendon before the scandal erupted, and should collect the three votes for that match.
Like the rest of the five, he won’t be present at the Palladium at Crown on awards night, but you don’t actually have to be physically at the table to have a powerful impact – as Banquo’s ghost proved to Macbeth.
One informed source estimated that Heeney’s behaviour meant that he had done himself out of potential lifetime future earnings of $10 million.
Maybe clubs need a new position, to formalise a role of cultural leader and mentor alongside the team captain. When asked for her thoughts, AFLW pioneer and West Coast Eagles AFLW coach Daisy Pearce made two important points.
Firstly, be a good human, she said in a press conference.
“And for those who are in high-profile positions, understand that you being a good human matters – but it also has a massive impact on what other people think is acceptable as well.”
Some think it is too much to expect our sports stars to be moral leaders, but I am with Pearce. It is exactly what should be expected of them – they have a responsibility to us all, especially the fans who are the ones paying hefty club memberships that help pay the players’ six-figure salaries.
Demanding expectations can sometimes be a powerful thing. I sometimes think back to shy peroxided blond kid whom I spotted hugging the walls of Australia House all those years ago whom I decided wouldn’t amount to much. Turned out I was wrong. His name was Michael Clarke.
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Stephen Brook is a special correspondent for The Age and CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously deputy editor of The Sunday Age. He is a former media editor of The Australian and spent six years in London working for The Guardian.Connect via X or email.
