As New Year draws closer and we roll into the time of reflection, we can be forgiven for thinking sport a pure bond we share.
With the passing of Nelson Mandela, social media was submerged in one of his wonderful quotes on unity: “Sport has the power to change the world…it has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does.”
It also has the power to unite opinion worldwide on the darker matters.
Gone are days of pure simplicity, we’re almost on the cusp of immunity when it comes to a headline involving an athlete being accused of sexual assault.
Yesterday as FSU quarterback Jameis Winston was cleared of rape allegations, this repetitive issue was again at the forefront of sporting debate.
Winston claimed the woman he had sex with in December last year was consensual. He was cleared of any wrongdoing.
While most pen their predictions for 2014, here is one that’s a certainty for you – next year we will continue to regularly hear of athletes being accused of sexual assault.
This isn’t a bash up of players by any means, they are the reason I enjoy and work in sport. But it’s those who tarnish its image for the remaining men who I’m referring to.
If we were to go by the criminal terminology, I have been sexually assaulted.
The definition of sexual assault is the sexual exploitation, forcible penetration, or an act of sexual contact on the body of another person, male or female, without his or her consent.
In 2008 I was in a nightclub celebrating my team’s win with a big group who’d all been to the game. The opposing team who had lost that night were also at the club.
There, I stood in a circle and while on the other end of some introductions one of the opposing players reached across, placed his hand on my right breast and proceeded to introduce himself by grabbing it and shaking it in view to all and sundry.
Here, I had two options. I could have walked straight out of there to the nearest police station and made a claim against him, or not said a word.
I chose the latter.
Fortunately for this idiot who was engaged at the time (and now married), he grabbed me and not another woman, for she I am sure could very well have gone down the route of ruining his image and earning potential.
So why didn’t I say anything or stand up for myself? Did I not feel violated? Of course I did.
This was not treatment what my father envisaged for his only child.
Perhaps if I then had made a complaint the player mightn’t ever get that inebriated again. Being drunk was certainly no excuse for his behaviour, but it was the reason I let it go.
Then there is the flip-side. We’ve seen the comments women write with great intent to these men on social media. Slowly they infiltrate a young man’s sense. These men are told they are hot. They are treated like kings.
“OMG you are so hot here is my number,” beeps another Instagram alert.
A young man in possession of both an ego and a raging libido? It could get messy.
Add to that mix alcohol and said women women with a motive? The result is downright ugly.
That women at the centre of the Winston case? From day one she was called every name under the sun and was instantly looked upon as a troublemaker, dismissed purely because Winston had notoriety and was an up and coming athlete.
If he didn’t have the fame, you have to wonder if she’d be written off so quickly.
In this day and age what women or god forbid, teenage girl, would want to endure a mental beating? An oncoming onslaught from fans, feeling you have lost the battle to fight for your right before you have even begun battle?
This is far from being over, it’s merely the beginning.
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