In a 2022 survey, one in four A-League Women players said they had experienced some form of emotional, psychological, verbal or financial abuse in football. Australia's player's union wants to fix that.
When Grace Maher was 15 years old, she made her professional debut with Canberra United in the A-League Women , the highest tier of women's club football in Australia.
Grace Maher debuted for Canberra when she was a teenager. A decade on, she wants to help other teenagers coming into the league.But as the seasons rolled on and she talked to more players across the competition, she began to ask herself questions.
"So a lot of things slid, and that culture, perhaps, has stayed, even while all these standards and expectations have increased. According to the report, in 2022, 27 per cent of 138 ALW players said they had experienced some form of abuse within a football setting. The vast majority of that was emotional, psychological, and verbal abuse, while a smaller percentage was financial and sexual.
Maher was not surprised by the results of the surveys. As a player delegate to the PFA, she has sat in on multiple meetings with players where she has heard first-hand accounts of abuse and harassment within clubs. "There's a gap between knowing what's OK and then also being able to act on it. So while there's a lot of things that have happened in the past, they end up not being because people are unsure if it was right or wrong, there's a lack of detail, and in the eyes of the law it becomes quite complex and often gets dropped.
"If we have mechanisms in place to stop these things falling through the cracks and being reported five or 10 years after they've happened, I think we're able to do a lot of good."As part of the project, the PFA also worked with global law firm Clifford Chance to conduct a more thorough review of the legal structures in place that players must navigate in their pursuit of remedy after experiencing abuse or harassment.
As a result of this complexity, players may simply not know whether their contracts protect them or allow them access to support or remedy if they experience abuse, meaning they are less likely to report it or seek help altogether. "The PFA is setting a new standard for how this work should be undertaken, and one I hope will be emulated globally by all of football's key stakeholders so players can thrive on and off the pitch," Craig said.
Another suggestion Maher makes is ensuring that each A-League club has a dedicated, independent member protection officer in place: somebody who is a safe, trusted, and accessible source of information and guidance when players want to raise any issues. The fact that clubs do not already have one, Maher says, is indicative of the wider problem.In a statement, A-Leagues commissioner Nick Garcia said the leagues would be releasing their own updated safeguarding mechanisms in due course.
"If no actions come of this, or we don't continue to push this agenda, the report will be lost and the solutions we're proposing won't be read by the people who need to read them," she said.
A-Leagues Abuse Harassment Report Safe Football Professional Footballers Australia PFA FIFPRO Union Safety
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