As a former Swans player, I’ve been left devastated

BRANDON
JACK

On the walls somewhere at the Sydney Swans’ HQ would be a series of words; a set of values that the club stands for or, at least, believes that they do. At one stage those words were hard, disciplined, united. I’m sure they are now something different, yet just as vague.

Every football club does this exercise in identity. They think long and hard about values then place them somewhere by the entrance, or in the change room, so that 50 times a day, players and staff are confronted by the words in the hope that they seep into their minds and create a culture. As a former Swans player, I am devastated that a group of players could make choices that created this week’s situation.

The pre-emptive caveat against any backlash for appearing to prioritise a man’s football career over a woman’s wellbeing: ‘‘Yes, we’re a football show, so we have to do our due diligence on how this will impact the season.’’

My caveat: I do not have one ounce of care for the impact this will have on the Swans’ season. This is a game that involves chasing a ball around an oval that is propped up by a business machine to mean more than it ever should.

But still, there is a football conversation here. One that extends beyond this season, beyond the potential five games that five players have been suspended for, beyond the four walls of the Sydney Swans.

Though the club has been profiteering off its place at the top of the footballing cultural epoch for decades, the Bloods and their supposedly humble culture provide the most pertinent example of what football clubs truly stand for.

Time and time again, when each club has a crisis – a sexual assault allegation, a drug scandal, a Mad Monday fiasco – we see something that is hidden by game-day mania and smiling players who pose for photos with children. We see that these role models earn their mantle without any reason.

Because, when given the chance to be role models over the past few days, not a single player or coach has stood firm. The chief executive said he was disappointed players had ‘‘found themselves’’ in this situation. The captain, having had time to be a leader, could only find it in himself to say he didn’t know the facts and couldn’t comment.

And the club itself has now said they ‘‘condemn all forms of abuse and disrespectful behaviour towards women’’. Something so obvious that the fact it has to be written down at all illuminates how disparate their values are from the actions of its players.

Each party here is saying the lines they are fed in an attempt to put the right plugs in the PR crisis holes. Because that’s their priority: minimising damage to the club, the people inside the four walls and the four walls themselves; not the fans, or the victims of any incident.

Because make no mistake, that is all a football club ever values: they operate in the business of wins and losses and through a series of savvy media campaigns and selected social posts. They cosplay as social instruments and create role models for fans without ever actually knowing who they are.

It is all well and good to condemn all forms of abuse and accept money from sponsors on social and political justice issues. To receive pats on the backs from fans for ‘‘standing for something’’, but that is all take and no give. Without significant action, that is an easy business decision and not a sign of culture.

I would like to hear a Swans leader say: ‘‘This is an ongoing investigation, but if any of our players were involved in a sexual assault, they would not be welcome at this club anymore.’’ That would not admit guilt, would not intervene with the criminal investigation, but be a fair statement by a club against gender-based violence. It would put a value ahead of the wins and losses and the loyalty of player ‘‘mateship’’.

Clubs, with their stances, make promises that players are expected to keep. For decades the Swans held themselves as a club that believed no individual was bigger than the team and are now pinned by their own mythology. Time will tell what the Swans truly value. I hope I am wrong with my cynicism. Though for that to be the case, something truly terrible has happened. And I cannot find any reason to smile or pat a single soul on the back for standing for something here. What I feel is this terrible emptiness that no words could fill. Especially not those displayed by the entrances of football clubs.