An AFL player was caught using cocaine? How the? What the?!
I’m sorry, but this stuff bores me to tears. If I had a bingo card for the footy season, one of the absolute certainties would be a player getting caught up in a cocaine scandal. And yes, I would specify cocaine as the drug of choice because it’s almost always cocaine, right? It’s the most expensive substance and the expected go-to for privileged, casual substance users. Catching a player using cocaine satisfies the idea of elitism we have about them; that deep down they’re arrogant souls who believe they’re above the rules. Other drugs don’t have the same “gotcha!” ability to confirm this belief.
Demons player Joel Smith is the latest AFLM player to be caught up in a drug scandal.Credit: Getty Images
In light of the Joel Smith situation, some people have been asking if the AFL has a drug problem. As a former player, my answer to this is that AFLM players take cocaine. AFLW players take cocaine. Local footy players take cocaine. As do teachers, lawyers, doctors. According to federal government research, more than one million Australians used cocaine in 2019. A lot of people have at some point in their lives touched cocaine. I include myself in this, both during and since my AFL career.
But the sense of scandal rolls on. Last year, Collingwood (now Hawthorn) player Jack Ginnivan admitted to using an illicit drug on a night out. Later in the year, Carlton recruit and former Gold Coast player Elijah Hollands pleaded guilty to cocaine possession. In 2022, footage of Bulldogs player Bailey Smith holding a bag of white powder and snorting a substance emerged online. In 2019, Collingwood player Sam Murray tested positive for cocaine. In 2018, a video of GWS player Shane Mumford snorting the drug three years earlier emerged. This is far from a comprehensive list.
The core question of this whole thing, if there is one to inspect, is less a question and more a disappointment. This situation is of interest because people paid amounts of money to play football are expected to be role models, and in cases like this we feel that they can’t put their personal lives aside to fulfil that obligation for us. We have an unwritten social contract with the players we adore. There has been an expectation set, whether rightly or wrongly so, and it has been unmet.
So, with sports stars, it’s the same old rollercoaster ride. A footballer is caught with an illicit substance (cocaine, it’s always cocaine), we get some glib superficial comments about zero tolerance and club culture, and hear of rehabilitation programs and off-field support that we can (and should) all roll our eyes at. We get a media frenzy and something to talk about. We eventually see a little slap on the wrist, which is all that is deserved in my mind because that is the equal to the severity of the situation.
But is there a “problem” within the AFL specifically? No. Defiantly, I will say, no. Go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in any local hall, and you’ll hear stories of addiction shattering a person’s life. You can hear it in their voices, the daily struggle to live with addiction. These are the impacts of a real drug problem. Their suffering is not comparably to the stupidity of a young man in the public eye being caught out consuming a drug that a vast number of Australians also indulge in from time to time.
Demons player Smith’s situation is different from the usual scandals because he tested positive to cocaine on game day, which means he could receive a four-year ban on account of the drug’s supposed performance-enhancing elements. His case also differs because there are allegations from Sports Integrity Australia, which remain unclear, that Smith “trafficked”, perhaps even to his teammates, which goes far beyond grainy iPhone footage of a player consuming drugs in a nightclub bathroom.
The alleged severity of Smith’s case aside, all those involved have switched into the predictable post-revelation round of tut-tutting, condemnation and forced expressions of deep regret. It’s like taking the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland, where we’re sailing down a canal as animatronics come out and say their lines convincing us, for a moment, that they are not stuck on autopilot, but being real with their performance. It’s the usually interesting Max Gawn giving a straight bat, brick wall answer when pressed on the issue.
This rinse-and-repeat outrage will eventually subside. If anything, this is all mere entertainment, and distraction, much like the game that the players are paid to play. It is not about the use of drugs. The issue of drug use in society and the complexities of addiction, the ramifications of trauma, the lack of access to mental health services, will not be found in a dissection of a footy player who engages in recreational cocaine use.
If you’ve ever watched The Wolf of Wall Street, the final scene is a real slap in the face. The camera pans out on a large audience who have paid to listen to a first-rate crook tell his tale. The focus is on the idiots smiling; they are the suckers in this. They’re the ones obsessed with wealth and success to the point that they will take advice from someone who has committed financial crimes. But the further irony is that we’re the audience of the tale too. If they’re the dummies, what are we?
No matter how many bad things football players do, we will still find a way to put them in lights and, more often than not, we prefer to live in ignorance of the things done behind closed doors. We say we want transparency, but it’s through fingers in front of our eyes.
The social contract says that they live up to this idealised version we want them to be. Our end is to live in ignorance and pretend that they’re just that. When the contract is shattered we feel a bit foolish and start pointing fingers, as the little boat sets off down the canal. It’s a small world after all…
Brandon Jack is a writer and former Sydney Swans AFL footballer.
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