What exactly are the responsibilities of a football club in controlling the behaviour of individual players? How much responsibility must individual players accept for their own behaviour?
AFL is in the spotlight at the moment for all the wrong reasons. And the club with the torch currently shining brightly on them is the West Coast Eagles. The Eagles, 2006 AFL premiers, have had a series of serious incidents beset their preparation and early performance this season.
The fact that they keep winning has nothing to do with the club’s culture. Culture is not reflected in victories. It is reflected in behaviour and image. In that department, the Eagles are in trouble. At least, the AFL believes so, calling the Eagles’ administration to meet the code’s bosses to explain what’s going on. The latest news is that a major sponsor is considering cutting its ties with the club. For a company to consider walking out on the best team in Australia’s biggest sporting competition, something worrying must be happening.
Among the incidents that have characterized the club’s lead in and beginning to the season are Ben Cousins’ drug problems and Daniel Kerr’s alleged link to drug dealers, Michael Braun swearing in a live post-match interview, Cousins’ and Michael Gardiner’s alleged links to the underworld and failure to co-operate with police investigations, Chad Fletcher’s death-defying alleged drug overdose and, last week, Adam Selwood’s appearance before the Tribunal on a charge of sledging Fremantle’s Des Headland with disgusting remarks about Headland’s six-year-old daughter. Selwood was cleared and is now considering suing media for defamation. In almost every other case, the club seems to have avoided, downplayed or dismissed the issue.
Many believe the Eagles’ reaction to incidents questioning player behaviour is that it is more concerned with getting people to lay off the club than examine why these things keep happening. In many sporting clubs the mode of operation centres on an Us vs Them mentality. Whether it is Us against other clubs, or Us against the media, or us against the world, some sporting clubs seem to think that a confrontational mentality off the field will somehow galvanize it on the field. It worked for Steve Waugh’s Australian cricket team, but it is fraught with risk.
The Eagles are a very tight-knit and successful club. There are obviously many things they are doing right. In the sports pages of Perth newspapers there are only two things that matter – the Eagles and, to a lesser extent, the Dockers. The players are treated like stars around town and so they should be. They are young, fit and successful. However, they also have status, money and time. The danger with that combination is that there can be a sense of being above the law.
The message from Eagles leadership is confusing. In some cases it appears to suggest that the club believes it is unfairly being picked on, that it’s being targetted, its players are no worse behaved than at other clubs and the club is unconditionally behind the players. If that is the case, where does that leave the players? I believe it instills a mentality among them that they don’t need to take much responsibility for their actions.
What do you think?
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