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Let’s promote civility in sport

By Dvir Abramovich - posted Tuesday, 3 July 2007


The debate unleashed by the Headland-Selwood affair should still reverberate like shrapnel through our consciousness. In fact, we should welcome a national conversation about civility in sports that this episode has generated.

Most of the torrential media coverage centered on whether Adam Selwood knew the tattoo on the Headland’s arm was of Headland's daughter. Yet, the sexism and tastelessness of his remarks are no less repugnant. It spotlighted a disconcerting and retrograde state-of-mind that degrades, belittles and ridicules women, and gigantically crosses the line.

Nathan Buckley has admitted to "dabbling" in sledging, adding that to penalise Selwood would unfairly single him out from all those who engage in this practice. Likewise, Ricky Ponting has revealed that he and his teammates regularly employ this psychological instrument.

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The word “slut” and similar-themed slurs, compound harmful stereotypes that hold women back and marginalise them. Women should not be doormats for men to wipe their contempt on or be tools for sports players to wield as a weapon. Using such language sends a damaging message to young girls about how men perceive them.

Would we as fathers or mothers allow our sons to call their sisters or mothers “sluts”?

The persistence of “sledging” is as much a failure of our value system as it is a product of our culture. It points to the increasing dumbing down of discourse and the loosening of standards regarding how we conduct ourselves in public and on the sporting field.

Certainly, sledging as a strategy is not new. It has infiltrated all levels of our codes, from school games to the professional league. Consequently, we must all be increasingly concerned about the unsportsmanlike attitude and conduct of our sporting people.

Taunting goes against every fibre of the ideals of sports, and negates the principles of sportsmanship and ethics in competition. It tarnishes the playing field, where courage, respect and dignity should loom large.

The key point to get across is that personal insults are always contemptible and are never harmless. They are akin to slaps in the face. The effect such language has on teenagers and adults should not be underestimated.

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Have we reached a point in Australian society where verbal bullying and a profound lack of civility has become commonplace?

Disrespectful language, which includes swearing and aggressive, vulgar language, should be condemned in no uncertain terms. It must never be regarded as par for the course in a competitive environment.

Studies have shown that in youth sports, verbal intimidation is often so abusive that it reaches the point where young men and women simply don't want to play anymore.

The overriding message should be that the rules of respect and civility are the same in sports as they are at home or in the classroom. If an employee or a student called his boss or teacher a “slut”, what would happen? There is no reason why normal standards of discourse expected in every day life should not apply on the field.

Coaches, administrators and parents must reject toxic language and bad behaviour and must set the tone about the importance of respectful language.

Consider: cheap shots may provoke a fury of emotion and reaction and have no place in sports. They genuinely hurt the feelings of the player, as was the case when Zinedine Zidane delivered a headbutt to the chest of an Italian defender in the 2006 World Cup final after experiencing a meltdown caused by a filthy insult.

I don’t care if making a crack about one’s wife or mother is an age-old tradition. It is surely not an honoured tradition.

Attempts to get inside an opponent’s head, to gain advantage by distortion, do inflict psychological injuries. Sledging is to be rejected as not being “part of the game”. In the USA sporting associations have defined taunting as actions or comments which are intended to “bait, anger, embarrass, ridicule or demean others”. I believe that sportspeople should adhere to strong ethical standards, respect the integrity and personality of their opponents, and set a good example for student-athletes.

Winning should not come at the expense of respect. Each player should take personal responsibility for keeping the game at a high level of sportsmanship.

If we implicitly accept sledging, we are directly endorsing the dumbing down of dialogue and the loosening of standards regarding how we conduct ourselves in public. Officials need to clamp down on injurious language, as complicated as it may seem.

Let’s summon a level of indignation and zero-tolerance for demeaning, bigoted language.

Professional sportspeople should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one. The instructive lessons to be learnt from the Headland-Selwood incident is that we should think about how much words can hurt. Players of any code are not to be treated as if they live on another planet.

Our young worship sports people as role models. It’s time players start behaving accordingly.

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About the Author

Dr Dvir Abramovich is the Jan Randa senior lecturer in Hebrew-Jewish studies and director of the University of Melbourne centre for Jewish history and culture.

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