Turning up heat on a private culture
IS this the case that changes Australian dressingroom culture forever?
Clubs, teammates, coaches and the AFL are all being placed in the gun by former Gold Coast Sun Joel Wilkinson’s legal challenge for what he claims was a string of offences including racial abuse and sexual taunting.
This a sensitive and complex issue because some of the offences were allegedly committed in dressingrooms where our wider society’s iron-clad rules traditionally develop elastic trimmings.
Changerooms are irreverent little worlds of their own where the line between cheeky and caustic behaviour is occasionally blurred, often crossed and rarely apologised for.
The culture of Australian sport has long been that teammates have been able to get away with saying pretty much anything to each other without fear it would end up in court.
This court challenge could change the world and raise questions about the standard of dressingroom etiquette.
Should racially slanted nicknames such as “Choc’’ Mundine now be considered off limits?
Should a coach be allowed to castigate a player for being overweight without it being branded bullying?
If a player gets stirred for having a shower in his underpants is that sexual harassment?
Would Simon Katich face assault charges for grabbing Michael Clarke around the throat in the Australian dressingroom following a dispute over the team song?
If you applied today’s rules to bygone eras in sport the queue to the courts could stretch around the block.
No matter the outcome of this court challenge, the only certainty is that Wilkinson’s story is a sad one.
When he arrived at the Suns after being Queensland under-18 captain Wilkinson was branded a “genetically blessed’’ athlete.
He not only beat the club bench-press record of 140kg set by Karmichael Hunt by a whopping 20kg, he also won the 2km time trial, proving he had strength and stamina.
The game has rarely seen a better young athlete but his skills did not match his power and endurance and, despite playing 26 games in two years, he faded.
It could not have helped him that he was racially sledged twice, by a rival player and a fan, early in his career.
Wilkinson regularly spoke out and it is understood he wished the club would have let him speak out more. The Suns may claim in defence they were trying to save him from further backlash.
Back and forth it will go, where it will finish nobody knows.