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After deliberation and consideration, AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan yesterday outlined the actions he and the AFL are taking to repair the damage done by the comments made by Eddie McGuire, James Brayshaw and Danny Frawley last weekend on Triple M. Here’s what Gill has planned:
Nothing.
Yep, that’s right. After three prominent figures in the AFL industry spent some time on live radio dreaming up an elaborate fictional scenario of violence against The Age journalist Caroline Wilson, the AFL has decided its course of action will be to do nothing at all.
More:
» It’s not Caroline Wilson, but Eddie, James and Danny who need to go
» Sport and our attitudes towards women
» When it comes to respect, window dressing is not enough
» Fantasising about murdering Caroline Wilson, on live radio
» Get the story straight about Eddie
For a point of comparison, the AFL also announced yesterday that Essendon’s Mark Jamar would be given a $2500 fine (reduced to $1500 with a guilty plea) for verbally abusing an umpire.
But verbally abusing a woman on the radio? No charge. Half-hearted apologies were made, move along, nothing to see here.
Of course, there was a statement published with a lot of nice words. ‘Unacceptable’. ‘Indictment’. ‘Horrified’. ‘Equality’. ‘Not good enough’. Yes, it said all the right things.
But when the time comes to take action? Bupkis.
Talk is cheap, Gill, so very cheap. It’s easy to say all the right things and pass on the right messages, but a nice speech is nothing without action to back it up.
Sure, you can talk about the AFL’s commitment to Our Watch and White Ribbon Australia, and the recent announcement of the National Women’s League for 2017. But just because the league is doing those things, that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to let this behaviour slide.
If anything, it makes it worse. All the work the AFL has done in this regard instantly feels hollow and disingenuous, as if it has been done purely to please a crowd and play well in the media without being backed by any real conviction about the importance of women’s welfare.
McLachlan says he wants to create change on this issue. I would love to know how he plans to do that without actually taking any kind of action.
What kind of action should be taken? It’s not really my place to say, but if Eddie McGuire reckons he would pay $50,000 (a year’s salary for some of us, Gill and Ed, just in case you’ve lost touch a little) to see Wilson drowned, that figure might be a good starting point.
If the AFL cares about women’s welfare, it has to do so not just when it is easy, but also when it is hard.
Hopefully, this realisation hits them sometime in the near future – until then, this will just be yet another disheartening decision to come out of AFL House.