Sydney’s most improbable AFL finals run may continue but culture questions are here to stay

As Swans turn sights on Fremantle for the preliminary final, their suspended players are still the story on and off the field Four weeks ago, the Sydney Swans were preparing to play North Melbourne in the final round of the home and away season. By that point of the week, five of their players had been suspended for the rest of the year for a breach of club standards. We’d been bombarded with think pieces. We’d been lectured to by personal injury lawyers.

Sydney’s chief executive Matthew Pavlich, who’d previously been reading the sports news on Perth television and reporting on dressage from the Paris Olympics, was central to a national conversation about how we talk about violence against women. The prime minister, the governor general and the Victorian premier had all weighed in. At that stage, much of the outrage had been directed at the way the story was framed as a footballing story .

As a result, nearly every single comment on the Swans by the football media was prefaced by an acknowledgment that our thoughts were foremost with the alleged victims. Most of the time they sounded like one of those disclaimers at the end of a betting ad.

Read the original report at The Guardian.