Susie O’Brien Jordan De Goey is not a ‘star’
WATCHING Collingwood player Jordan De Goey kick five goals last Thursday night to the roar of the crowd in Perth sickened me to my stomach.
How can a player charged with indecent assault be allowed to play football?
Sure, he hasn’t been found guilty, but there should be respect for the police’s process of investigation and the alleged victim.
To watch him play football as if nothing else was going on was mystifying and infuriating.
A discussion straight after the match on Fox Footy with former players Nick Riewoldt, Jonathan Brown and Gary Lyon didn’t even mention the pending charge.
In fact, De Goey was lauded by the all-male panel.
“Great to see him back in some form,” Matthew Pavlich said.
“It was all about Jordan De Goey,” said Gary Lyon.
The charge relates to an incident that took place in 2015 involving one woman and another man who has also been charged with indecent assault.
Police continued investigating after initial charges were dropped in 2018 and the new charge was anwas nounced a few weeks ago.
The AFL also investigated and cleared De Goey – don’t you love it when organisations investigate themselves?
As I’ve written before, I can’t see why doesn’t the AFL have a no-fault way of addressing these issues. The NRL requires players to stand down while serious charges are being investigated, without an admission of guilt.
It didn’t help that on the same day Collingwood beat the Cats, the news was particularly distressing. There a story about Melbourne mum Elaine Pandilovski, whose estranged husband was charged with her murder after her body was found under her house last Tuesday.
And on the same day, a man was shot dead by police after stabbing a woman in such a frenzied attack that she was almost unrecognisable. Police say he was known to the older woman.
It comes as more details have emerged of the shameful Adelaide Crows camp that was so toxic that players were allegedly told they needed to be “so tight, that if a teammate slept with your wife it would be OK”.
Even in the midst of a pandemic, violence against women continues to be a serious problem in our society.
It comes down to instilling a culture of respect for women, and one step towards this is condemnation of those, like De Goey, who faces a serious charge like indecent assault.
It doesn’t mean he’s guilty, it means we don’t yet know what happened, and so it shouldn’t be business as usual.
Announcing the charge, afl.com.au called De Goey a “star Magpie”.
Until he’s cleared, he’s no star, and we shouldn’t treat him like one. Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist.