Australian football players have always been treated like golden gods. In return, they gain responsibility and are expected to uphold community standards and conduct themselves as role models to young people. But today's celebrity-obsessed culture has begun to treat athletes like rockstars, giving players unprecedented attention. Fast livin' rockstars are typically prone to going off the deep end and abusing drugs, but recently, a number of footy players have been involved in similar examples of misbehaviour.
Sports author Gideon Haigh has commented that football has slowly turned into a branch of the entertainment industry. Footy players are revered as celebrities because they are young, attractive, well paid and consistently lit up by the media spotlight.
Social research consultant Debbie Hindley believes that today, football players are marketed and sold to the public as invincible. However, with this attention comes a high amount of pressure to perform both on and off the field as recently revealed by the behaviour of former West Coast Eagles captain Ben Cousins and retired Newcastle Knights captain Andrew Johns, who were once considered heroes of the Australian Football League and National Rugby League respectively.
Johns’ confession that he regularly used the drug ecstasy was attributed to depression caused by the massive pressures placed on him. 'I've carried the guilt for years that the perception of my life has been such a lie … I hated the superstar-type figure I was perceived to be,’ he said. Similarly, Cousins' cocaine abuse and off-field partying have led to a downward spiral of destructive drug addiction and a series of run-ins with the law.
David Crosbie, CEO of Odyssey House Victoria— one of Australia's leading alcohol and drug treatment agencies—argues that footballers face a much higher risk of becoming involved with illicit drugs. Drafted to clubs early in life, not far from adolescence, footy players are thrust into a world of celebrity culture. With high expectation placed on them, young players are in the perilous position of having unparalleled responsibility coupled with unparalleled fame and fortune.
As former West Coast Eagles coach and Director General of the WA Department of Sport and Recreation, Ron Alexander, points out, “They get seen, they're very public, they're on radio, they're on television; they're almost like rockstars in some of this … then they get put up on a pedestal, and so then people are saying ‘OK, you have a responsibility, we're wanting you to act in a certain way.’”
Fremantle Dockers coach, Damian Drum, claimed that the behaviour of Johns and Cousins sent the wrong message to young people and shattered a perception that to be a success in football you had to stay well away from drugs. Prime Minister John Howard called for zero tolerance in relation to drug use in sport.
But the clubs are also to blame. Federal Arts and Sports Minister, George Brandis, argued that lax AFL and NRL drug policies give players too much lee-way to misbehave without the appropriate discipline. The AFL has received considerable criticism for its policy where clubs are only notified once a player has failed a third in-house test. The NRL policy is somewhat stricter, giving a formal warning and pay reduction after a first positive test, and a 12 match suspension and possible dismissal after the second.
ABC sports presenter Mick O'Regan suggests that clubs are 'slapping players on the wrist' because they're afraid to lose them and their on-field success. He argues this is inadequate punishment—the sort of preferential rockstar treatment that wouldn't be given to the average person in the community.
Daily Telegraph columnist Gary Linnell adds that West Coast ignored a growing culture of irresponsibility over a number of years, which was swept under the carpet in order to protect their players and the club's image. Linnell claims that footy players live in a culture where 'no one ever says no'.
According to Sport Management Professor, David Shilbury of Deakin University, unless there's some sort of redressing of the importance of football players in our society, then this situation is unlikely to change much. Clubs will continue to avoid taking appropriate action and players like Cousins and Johns will continue to receive paparazzi treatment and accordingly act like rockstars.
How do I know this?
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