After the furore yesterday over AFL club bosses Eddie McGuire and James Brayshaw‘s bizarre and bloody stupid joke about drowning journo Caroline Wilson, the two have provided separate apologies over their remarks – but no official public statements as of yet. This comes in the wake of a statement from the AFL that their comments “could be seen to encourage violence against women”.
According to some reports, McGuire had been told by the AFL that he had to apologise or resign.
McGuire provided a statement to the Herald Sun:
Anything that can be perceived to promulgate domestic violence is unacceptable.
That was the least of anyone’s intention. The day was based on good humour, sledging of each other and tomfoolery.
In raising money for motor neurone disease, all day everyone was cracking gags at each other’s expense and that was the tone, clearly, of the banter.
However, on White Ribbon weekend, we have to be ever-vigilant in stamping out anything that can be misconstrued one iota as supporting the abhorrent act of domestic violence.
McGuire is understood to have sent Wilson a text message yesterday.
He appeared on Today this morning, essentially repeating his statement to the Herald Sun – agreeing that it was inappropriate to joke about violence against women, but defending the comments as being in the line with the ‘tone’ of the banter on the day.
For his part, fellow radio guest Danny Frawley, who joked that he’d jump in and hold Wilson underwater, apologised for his remarks on Fox Footy.
“Last Monday, on radio I made a couple of insensitive, inappropriate remarks about Caroline Wilson. Clearly it was a poor attempt at humour, for which I sincerely apologise,’’ he said.
“So, we’ll just leave it at that. As I said, it was a poor attempt at humour and it didn’t go down that way.’’
Brayshaw is apparently intending to make a comment regarding his part on his radio show The Rush Hour this arvo.
Basically, it’s all bit shit and embarrassing for both the guys involved and the AFL. Numerous commenters have reached out to us in true form to accuse us of ‘not getting the joke’ but ultimately, if your idea of humour involves a bunch of blokes holding a woman underwater until she drowns, then you’re probably not that funny.
You can prattle on about a ‘culture of offence’ or the ‘P.C. police’ all you like, but there’s a good reason why this one has copped it from everyone – even those who are normally quick to condemn automatic outrage. Aussie sport has a serious problem with women, and it’s embarrassing. That’s not really up for dispute.
It also makes the AFL look like absolute deadshits for supporting anti-violence against women charities while a few of their good old boys pinball around the commentators circuit running their mouths about drowning women.
If one of the vanishingly few prominent female sports journos in this country can’t do her job without a pack of meatheads ‘jokingly’ wishing violence upon her, that’s a problem. No one gives a shit whether you personally like her reporting or not. We can do better than that.
Photo: Getty Images.
