It was tempting, sitting there in your shorts and thongs over the weekend, to think all was well with the world, and with football. Footy loves a ‘great story’ and the opening round was replete with them. We watched a young man who’s endured two bouts of chemotherapy kick a goal at the MCG. We welcomed back another who has had to retrain his neural pathways, and who recently admitted “I was a shell of the person I was”. We drank in the joy and lunacy of Joe Daniher. In Jason Horne-Francis and Nick Daicos, we saw the future.
After two years of cardboard cut-outs and fake crowd noise, we were gifted heaving crowds and high scores.
But we also saw the industry at its worst. On Thursday, Fox Sports’ Tom Morris was sacked for what he conceded were “disgusting and disgraceful” comments about a work colleague, after recording emerged of him using homophobic and sexist language in reference to her. In the time it took to walk the dog, he went from the high moral ground to a figure of national opprobrium. It was not a good day to be a bloke with a press pass. It was not a good day to be a woman in the media, or a woman who loves sport.
There was schadenfreude. There were straw men galore. And there were no winners. Apparently it was incumbent on everyone who had written an article – or even published a tweet condemning Beveridge – to go 10 times as hard at Morris. Apparently, you had to pick a side. One football reporter issued a statement from the Notes section of his iPhone, hoping that Morris wouldn’t be ‘permanently cancelled’.
There was a common lament, echoed in Nicole Hayes’s piece today: ‘where are the men’s voices here?’, ‘why, after reacting as though the Beveridge press conference was the worst atrocity ever committed, have you all suddenly gone silent?’ and ‘why, just like in Canberra, is it women doing all the heavy lifting?’
I am hardly in a position to preach from the puritanical pulpit on this. Few are. But as a bloke, it was an opportune time to shut up, to listen, and to learn something. Most of us could safely say we would never denigrate a work colleague like that. But the tone, if not the content, was familiar to any man who has ever gathered in a group and run with the pack.
It was a tone that scores of women referenced in post after post, in article after article. It is a tone that emerges when the veneer of professionalism is removed. Many said they do not feel safe or fully supported working in this industry. They are women who find it difficult to trust the men they work alongside, who constantly have to prove they belong and who are regularly belittled online. Kelli Underwood, a colleague of Morris, said she felt “sick in the stomach”. For men following this story, there was utter astonishment, followed by a certain shame. For women, it came as no surprise at all. There was just a simmering fury.
Compared to the dark old days, the industry really has come a long way on this issue. But it was miles behind to begin with. Even now, you really don’t have to look hard. It was comprehensively laid out in Michael Warner’s The Boys’ Club, a book which was dismissed by the men running the game, and pretty much ignored by most mainstream media outlets. It is still there in the TV coverage, which rewards and promotes several men whose mere presence still sits uneasily, particularly for women. It is there whenever Daisy Pearce does special comments – both in the online detritus and the way her fellow callers talk over her. It is there in the ubiquitous betting ads – which pretty much fund Fox Sports – and where the men are blithering imbeciles and the women are eye-rollers and style-crampers.
But this is not really a footy issue. It is an issue in every workplace in Australia. It is an issue in our national parliament. Indeed, Morris’s employers handled this more decisively, and more convincingly, than many of our leaders in Canberra. His apology was a decent one, free of weasel words. It was a lesson to many other prominent football and political figures who have transgressed, and whose apologies often boil down to “if anyone was offended … ”.
On the ABC over the weekend, Underwood expressed surprise at how swiftly this was dealt with. She half expected Morris to be given a few weeks off, and quickly and quietly welcomed back into the club. For years in football, it was hard to know where the line was when it came to be being sacked. Well, the line is clear now. Maybe things will change this time. They sure as hell need to.
