AFL cops serve on brain trauma
Campaigner Peter Jess has lashed the AFL for laying blame on the clubs and players for brain trauma suffered because of concussion.
The AFL is defending a major class action by 100 players, led by Geelong favourite Max Rooke, and claims clubs and “players themselves” were responsible for footballers’ health and wellbeing, and that players knew the risks of injuries before taking the field.
“It’s unbelievably insulting to every player who has taken the field,’’ Jess said. “How do you tell a young draftee with little or no life skills that the employment he or she is about to undertake is likely to lead to brain damage and it is their fault as, the AFL says, any reasonable person would know. It’s frightening in the extreme.’’
Several former players contacted Jess on Sunday expressing disbelief at the AFL’s argument, including Carlton great Greg Williams and former Bulldog and Bomber Alan Stoneham.
In documents filed in the Victorian Supreme Court as part of the class action, the league has revealed it will argue “the clubs, as the AFL players’ employers, along with the AFL players themselves”, are primarily responsible for players’ health and wellbeing.
The league will also argue the players knew, and accepted, the risks inherent in playing a professional contact sport.
Jess, who has called for concussion policies to be reviewed since 2008, said the league was not accepting responsibility as the custodians of the game and the rule makers.
The AFL has said it made at least 30 rule changes to the game since 2000 in a bid to reduce the risk of players suffering concussions.