AFL failed community over Dustin Martin affairRITA PANAHI
Herald Sun
January 21, 2016 AUSTRALIA’S pre-eminent sporting organisation portrays itself as a community leader in promoting respect and responsibility towards women but the reality is different.
Far from being at the top of the moral totem pole, the AFL has shown its desire to protect the brand trumps all else.
A woman who crossed paths with an aggressive, inebriated star footballer was browbeaten, belittled and maligned for standing up for herself.
It wasn’t long before the well-oiled AFL spin machine changed the narrative and cast the complainant as an unreliable troublemaker and the drunken lout as the victim. It’d almost be funny if it wasn’t despicable.
It’s clear that the staff at AFL House are slow on the uptake; fresh from their disastrous mishandling of the Essendon saga, where they attempted to manipulate the process and outcome, they have again committed a senseless act of self-harm through what appears to be a combination of arrogance, ineptitude and a need to micromanage “the message”.
The Dustin Martin issue could have been over with when the on-baller called the woman he terrified at a Melbourne restaurant, who we will call Tracey, and unequivocally apologised for his aggressive behaviour.
That apology was accepted, as was a reassurance from Martin that he would never again engage in such conduct.
Richmond could have imposed an appropriate sanction such as a fine, suspension and/or counselling and closed the matter to the satisfaction of all parties.
Instead, the club chose to brief against the victim, revealing her identity to sections of the media. Shortly afterwards the AFL joined in with the “integrity unit” taking charge of the investigation.
A football journalist all but divulged the woman’s name on Melbourne radio: her employer, job title and the specific nature of her work were shared with the audience. It wasn’t long before the death threats started.
Tracey was forced to close her social media platforms, but that hasn’t stopped thousands of disgusting attacks against her character on football forums as well as Twitter and Facebook.
What possible reason could there be for revealing the identity of a victim other than to intimidate and discourage other victims from coming forward?
It’s little wonder that Tracey now says she would tell other victims not to make a complaint to the AFL.
There’s been a great deal of scuttlebutt and spin during this episode but here are some facts:
Tracey has not deviated from her story and far from her account being “disproved”, it has been backed up by her dinner companion as well as independent witnesses the Herald Sun spoke to in the days after the event — but the AFL says it has other witnesses that cast doubt on the accounts.
The “threat to kill” claim did not come from Tracey, but was attributed to a diner at a nearby table.
But Tracey says she was threatened with being stabbed with a chopstick and she certainly felt threatened, particularly when Martin cornered her and slapped the wall behind her head.
On more than one occasion Tracey felt pressured to water down her statement. She was presented with an altered statement to sign that played down the events of the evening.
Tracey made it clear to Richmond and the AFL that she did not want to make a police complaint as that would ultimately reveal her identity and expose her to more abuse.
When the AFL did refer the matter to police, Tracey said an integrity officer told her, “we have washed our hands of you”, before adding that a police investigation would “buy the AFL a year”.
Without a statement from Tracey, the police investigation went nowhere as there was little chance of a successful prosecution.
There was no CCTV footage of the incident as the cameras covering that area were not functioning, according to the restaurant owners. The CCTV footage of Martin being escorted out of the premises did not show the clash preceding his eviction.
The AFL and Richmond briefed against Tracey while undertaking an “independent” investigation of the incident, revealing what appears to be an absence of sincerity and integrity.
The AFL’s record of vindictiveness speaks for itself, from pressuring radio station SEN 1116 to sack Grant Thomas (which the AFL denied) to pulling the accreditation of sports writers who deviate from the AFL script.
It’s not just a boys’ club with backward notions about women; it is an insular clique — and it can’t afford that insularity when the footy world already has a tendency to be out of step with community standards; take the sickening article published after former player Nick Stevens was convicted of bashing his former partner.
The piece, which has since been removed from The Age’s website, quoted footy officials and former teammates praising Stevens.
This is, after all, a world in which convicted woman basher Ricky Nixon thrived until he was brought undone by a teenager.
While AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan and Richmond CEO Brendon Gale were worrying about the “distress and harm” to Martin’s reputation, nobody bothered to check on the victim, who has not only been needlessly retraumatised but also cast as a fantasist.
The co-ordinated message by footy officials and eager sections of the media referring to supposed evidence contradicting the victim’s account has been accepted, but neither Richmond nor the AFL can tell us precisely what that contradictory evidence is.
Possibly because, like the AFL’s integrity, it does not exist.
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