AFL invite backlash as they make it up as they go with Willie Rioli case

The Guardian

08-05-2025

After a week of threats, statements, weasel words, revelations and negotiations, the AFL finally landed on what they do best – a sanction. Willie Rioli can seize a dead ball, swivel his backside, slalom through a trio of defenders and slam home a goal in about 2.5 seconds. That's how long it should have taken the AFL to deal with his alleged threats. Instead, in their eternal struggle between being progressive and punitive, they were caught in the middle, swinging in the wind.
There are a lot of factors at play here, the most glaring of which is the way the AFL responds to these incidents. The weekend's controversy needed to be dealt with decisively and coherently. Indeed, in recent times, the AFL has been the most punitive of organisations. Last year, they suspended one of their umpires for dressing up as Osama Bin Laden. It begged a few questions. What sort of rollicking knees-up is an umpires' dress up day? And given the state of umpiring at the moment, can we afford for one of their brethren to be in the sin bin for such an atrocity?
The other crackdown has been on players raising their middle finger. If you abuse players as they come off the field, perhaps you deserve be to given the bird. Back in the day, a football crowd was a bit more self-policing. These days, it's the player who has to do the explaining. When Bailey Smith was filmed giving the double-barrelled bird, he was issued with one of Pauline Hanson's 'please explains'. 'The AFL is set to reach out to the Cats so it can understand the motivations or background behind the interaction,' the very serious statement read.
In things that actually matter, however, they've been decidedly more hesitant and lenient. The way they handled the Noah Balta court case was instructive. There are a lot of harsh penalties in footy. They'll penalise the piddling and the accidental. You can get three weeks for a tackle that would have earned the praise of coaches just a few years ago. You can be a 16-year-old who tosses a flogger on the field and they'll ban you from going to the footy for two years. Compared to that, what Balta did was a disgrace. And yet he'll be running out on Sunday – a very fortunate and free man.
You know what I'm doing here? I'm being a whataboutist. They abound on X. What about this? What about that? Where's my parade? They have an obsession with climate activists using airport lounges. They're almost always middle aged and presumably very hard-done-by blokes. And in a case like Rioli, it's an excuse to voice what they're really itching to say – that the woes of Aboriginal footballers get too much airtime, and that everyone is a victim in their own way. Invariably, after 200,000 versions of the same tweet, what they're essentially saying boils down to three words: 'what about me?' They like to think they're above the trolls, but they are just as contemptible. They embolden them and fan the inevitable abuse.
The AFL has invited that kind of backlash with their inconsistency. In doing so it obscures what is a key factor in all this – that Willie Rioli is clearly struggling, that he cops vile abuse and that any chance of a nuanced conversation about that is now probably impossible. When he lashed out on social media following the Hawthorn game, Port said they were supportive. But it felt like a smother. It was a variation of 'we understand your pain, but please express it on our terms'.
And it is a shame because he had important things to say about the racism he alleges his family was subjected to at Hawthorn. But no-one wants to talk about that anymore. It's football's great unspoken. We, and the word 'we' is always loaded when we talk about such things, all moved on from that didn't we?
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A few weeks later, the impression in Ballarat was of a frustrated man who clearly needs a break. Playing in the Showdown on Saturday, at the best of times one of the most febrile environments in Australian football, would have added kerosene to the situation.
What a tedious, toxic, utterly avoidable mess. This whole thing could have been handled so much better. It required decisive action, proper English, common sense and a semblance of consistency. It warranted a strong, early sanction and the appropriate support mechanisms. Instead, the AFL shilly-shallied. They had a few bob each way. And they perpetuated the prevailing view that they're making it up as they go.