Jarryd Hayne is wowing crowds and commentators with his play on the American football field in the US. His years in Australian rugby league may have a lot to do with his star performance.
Last week’s prestigious National Press Club address was delivered by the Australian Football League’s CEO, Gillon McLachlan, on the topic of “Australia’s game in a global environment”. This was an opportunity…
The imbroglio surrounding AFL legend and 2014 Australian of the Year Adam Goodes has been unedifying, to say the least. Those who boo Goodes when he has the ball invariably claim it has nothing to do with…
While AFL player Adam Goodes polarised Australians by performing an Indigenous war dance, New Zealanders unite in celebration of the Haka. The difference in approach to Indigenous culture is telling.
Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane has said if the vilification of Adam Goodes does not stop, players may have to take matters into their own hands and walk off the field in protest.
Sydney Swans player Adam Goodes was yet again booed by Australian football fans at the weekend. Sadly, AFL supporters have a history of emphasising notions of “difference” by abusing Indigenous players.
In March 2015, Karmichael Hunt pleaded guilty to four counts of cocaine possession. This coincided with the end of his career at the Gold Coast Suns AFL club. At the close of the court case, a colleague…
After saying he was ‘deeply suspicious’, a judge cleared a man of child pornography offences. We need to understand the standard of proof to make sense of verdicts, including AFL rulings on doping.
The AFL draws the biggest crowds in the country and its growth has been driven by female fans being drawn to the game and sticking with it as they get older.
There may be career-ending sanctions for sportspeople who have inadvertently tested positive to a performance-enhancing drug after having consumed an illicit drug.
Men might believe that women don’t have what it takes to be serious sports fans but new research into female AFL fans proves them wrong. Some women are footy converts, some have it in the blood – and some were born to it.
Our study found that 8% of the 1,684 elite Australian athletes we surveyed said they had used at least one of six illicit drugs – including ecstasy, cocaine and cocaine – over the previous year.
Male sports stars perpetrating violence against women is a phenomenon that, sadly, seems to cross both international and sporting borders. In the most recent high-profile case, NFL player Ray Rice was…
When the Sydney Swans take on Hawthorn at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday, it won’t just be AFL fans cheering. As Australia’s dominant sport competition, the AFL generates more revenue than any…
Research Fellow, Institute for Health & Sport, member of the Community, Identity and Displacement Research Network, and Co-convenor of the Olympic Research Network, Victoria University