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St Kilda coach Ross Lyon addresses his players at quarter time during the AFL Round 22 match between the Melbourne Demons and the St Kilda Saints at the MCG. Slattery Images
If there’s one thing we can take from the latest AFL – and St Kilda – sex scandal, it isn’t that players should no longer visit high schools, it isn’t that the Saints premiership chances are gone (again), and it isn’t that the game – or even the Saints – have widespread issues. No, the one thing we can take from it all is that players need to be more careful.
That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.
The media had a field day on the report that a schoolgirl had fallen pregnant after having sex with two Saints players she met at a high school footy clinic. Headlines screamed “sex storm”. Questions were immediately being asked.
The Age even jumped on that worrying trend of sports journalism that is scanning comments on BigFooty and “reporting” the most interesting.
By the end of the day, however, the AFL’s investigation into the matter managed to take a bit of the heat out of the story.
Among its conclusions were that the relationship between the “two young players” and the girl was consensual and started after a game in Sydney in Round 1, not the clinic; phone records and an interview with the girl independently confirm the statements made by the players; and Victoria Police interviewed the girl and will not be taking action.
“All available evidence indicates that the players had no contact with the young woman at an AFL Player Appearance at the student’s school, but met for the first time some week’s later after an AFL match following round one of the 2010 season,” an AFL statement said.
This basically debunked the footy clinic angle, which was seen by some as the most surprising and potentially damaging aspect of the story.
The other part of the story that should be stressed – and was clearly missed by some covering yesterday’s events – was that the initial report claimed the girl told the players she was 18 and working at the Australian Institute of Sport, and that her Facebook page said she was 19.
So, given contact apparently didn’t take place at the school visit, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the players weren’t even aware she was a schoolgirl.
Which puts the initial story about a footballer impregnating a schoolgirl into some perspective, doesn’t it? The headlines were always going to sound bad – how could they not? – but it is good that some light was shed on the situation for those willing to look beyond the line at the top of the story.
At the same time, however, the girl should not be forgotten because of the way things were reported.
The sad part of all this is a young girl is now pregnant. And whilst we can question why she was in Sydney or why there was such confusion over her age, it remains that a footballer is believed to be responsible.
Had the footballers been more careful, this part of the story would not have occurred, if there would be a story at all. In this day and age, where players are practically regarded as heroes, caution needs to be used.
Maybe that means the players should have been more careful when it came to contraception. Maybe that means they should have been more careful when it came to accepting the girl’s age, even if they had no reason for doubt.
Either way, there’s a lesson for all young footballers in the story, and it would be great if that was how the football world walked away from all this.
It probably won’t – the media love a good sex scandal – but with the AFL, St Kilda and Police all deciding to not take further action, there is hope.
Adrian Anderson declared it yesterday “a private issue between the parties.” St Kilda labelled it “a private matter.”
The unfortunate thing is, so far it’s been anything but.