Rachel Mealey: After a scandal plagued week for their club, some of the Sydney Swans players were brought to tears as the final siren sounded after yesterday’s match at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Five players have been stood down for breaching club standards, while Victoria Police investigates a report of sexual assault. Yesterday both the men’s and women’s teams won their matches, but some fans left the stadium in protest before the men’s game began. Katherine Gregory reports.
Katherine Gregory: A hard-fought win, with a standing ovation for the Sydney Swans men’s team, who beat North Melbourne in their final round match. They had a lot to prove to their fans, many of them extremely shocked and disappointed by the scandal which has rocked the club.
Lulu Clarke: Especially in the last week, I’ve definitely drifted apart from the Sydney Swans and just the AFL industry as a whole, I would say.
Katherine Gregory: Lulu Clark was born into a Sydney Swans passionate family, but she’s one of many fans who walked out of the SCG on Sunday afternoon after the women’s Swans won against Essendon and before the men’s game kicked off.
Lulu Clarke: So I originally had, I bought a ticket for the men’s game and then the news did break and I decided I’m absolutely not going to the men’s game.
Katherine Gregory: She hopes the club is listening. The fallout from the five male players who were sanctioned for breaching protocols last week over drinking and staying out late the previous weekend has, in the words of the club’s chairman, torpedoed this season. Police from Victoria Sexual Crime Squad are separately investigating a report of sexual assault which the ABC understands centres on a player allegedly touching a woman without her consent. Fans appreciating the club punishing the players, but saying more needs to be done to address cultural problems.
Fan: It would have been a really momentous day for the club if it wasn’t for the actions of these individuals and yeah, I’m just devastated.
Katherine Gregory: One fan was almost not allowed into the stadium because he was carrying a placard saying, do the work to stop gendered violence.
Fan: It’s taken a dent for sure. I have gotten deeply into the Swans in the last decade precisely because of great culture. So this has, this event has shocked that to the core.
Katherine Gregory: But a record 16,000 people did turn up to watch the AFLW game and post-match the Swans women’s team singing their club’s song with huge enthusiasm, indicating an appeal for unity. Some of the Swans fans leaving before the men’s game reveal their shock at the past week’s developments.
Fan: It’s such a large female fan base for the club and I think we all held them to high standards and I think it’s something they’re going to have to look at, I think.
Katherine Gregory: Sarah Walsh, the former soccer player and head of women’s football at Football Australia, saying it’s been a tough week for all women in sport.
Sarah Walsh: Yeah, look, we’ve got a long way to go in society. I don’t think this is a Sydney Swans issue at all. These really hard times and dark times present a really great opportunity, not just for sport, for us to put a mirror up and ask ourselves the hard questions.
Rachel Mealey: Sarah Walsh from Football Australia, ending that report by Katherine Gregory.