Personal Injury

Recent legal proceedings between a former junior player and coach within the Sydney Swans Football Club elucidate an insidious culture of abuse within junior sport.

Identifying the factors that perpetuate this culture is increasingly important, especially as public awareness grows around the issue and the scope for institutional safeguards and legal reform expands.

The Abuse Allegations

In December 2024, a former junior footballer filed an institutional sexual abuse action in the NSW Supreme Court against both the Sydney Swans and ex-Coach Mark Heaney, alleging grooming and sexual abuse over two years within the Swans’ development academy.

The allegations date back to 2014 when the former coach was still involved with the club. It is alleged that Heaney acted inappropriately in a variety of ways, including exposing himself and soliciting explicit messages.

Last month, a similar legal action was launched by the son’s father.

Both the father and son have accused the Swans of failing to keep the young player safe.

The son expressed his anguish that his AFL “dream was shattered behind closed doors by people” he was taught to trust.

Meanwhile, the father lamented his anger that “nobody from the Swans or the AFL ever had the decency to contact him (us) and apologise or take responsibility or offer counselling,”

“I feel they brushed the abuse under the carpet.”

The son said the abuse took away “years” of his life and affected his health and “sense of safety in the world”.

In 2014, Heaney separately pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to groom a child.

The Bigger Picture

Allegations of this nature are not anomalous – instead, they are symptomatic of a broader issue within sporting culture that increasingly threatens its integrity and esteem.

Before framing the legal dimensions of the issue, it is pertinent to understand the broader context in which opportunities for the sexual abuse and exploitation of young athletes are facilitated.

Foregrounding this context is especially important given that the inaction and complicity of sporting institutions can make them equally as culpable for sexual abuse as the individual perpetrators.

Underlying Factors

Recently, there has been a growing acceptance that athlete abuse is not only caused by the nefarious behaviour of individual actors but also by factors that are deeply entrenched within sporting structures.

Within sporting environments, there is a prevailing characterisation of abusive behaviour as  ‘functional’, in that it fosters performance and therefore leads to success.

Because of this characterisation, abusive practices are commonplace and have been accepted as a means to an end, in which winning comes at the expense of athletes’ physical, mental and emotional well-being.

The athletes that are targeted are conditioned to accept that they should silently endure abuse, whilst bystanders, such as family members, believe that they should not intervene.

In many instances, the abusers exploit their high-level positions and the expectation that athletes comply with their authority.

As a result, many athletes don’t report abusive behaviour due to fears that they will be ostracised or dismissed as a failure. Others may not even recognise when actions become abusive, as they are socialised into the belief that it is a functional enhancer of performance.

All these factors are exacerbated by the intensity of junior sport at the elite level, where athletes are isolated from their families and support networks making them more susceptible to abuse.

These structures, norms and values all coalesce to legitimise cycles of abuse that prioritise athletes’ performance over their safety and wellbeing.

Legal Context

Beyond the social and cultural factors that facilitate the abuse of young athletes, there is an important legal framework to consider.

Sexual abuse encompasses a wide variety of criminal offences under all of Australia’s jurisdictions, and increasingly, survivors of sexual abuse in sport are pursuing civil claims for negligence, vicarious liability and breach of statutory duty.

Duty of care

Institutions have a legal duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse, including taking reasonable steps to prevent harm and respond appropriately to allegations.

Consequently, all sporting organisations owe a legal obligation to protect minors in their safeguarding, recruitment, coaching, and reporting practices. A failure to prevent reasonably foreseeable harm may result in negligence and claims of vicarious liability.

Vicarious Liability

Recently, the scope for institutional liability in historical abuse has expanded as the courts have demonstrated a propensity to apply the concept of vicarious liability more broadly.

For example, in the case of Prince Alfred College Incorporated v ADC, the High Court provided some clarity on the principles of vicarious liability, particularly apropos to institutional abuse. This is an important consideration for sporting organisations as it reaffirms their potential liability for the intentional wrongdoing of employees.

There were several key takeaways from the judgment;

• For vicarious liability to be established, the employee’s wrongful act must be connected to their employment, not just that the employment provided an opportunity for the act. 
• A “relevant approach” can be employed to determine if an employer is vicariously liable by considering the nature of the employee’s role, the power, authority, and trust placed in them, and how these factors contributed to the commission of the wrongful act. 
• An employer is more likely to be found liable if the employee’s position, created by their employment, gave them special access or opportunity to commit the wrongful act against the victim.
• The vicarious liability of an employer cannot be absolved automatically just because the wrongful act of the employee is criminal.

In sporting contexts, this includes club officials, academy coaches, and volunteers acting within the scope of their responsibilities or under the authority of the organisation. Consequently, it is increasingly important that clubs, federations, and training academies adequately discharge their duty of care by implementing proper screening, oversight, and complaint mechanisms.

High-Profile Cases

The legal proceedings initiated against the Sydney Swans are not novel – instead, they follow a long line of institutional abuse claims against sporting organisations both domestically and internationally.

Western Bulldogs

In a landmark case, former junior footballer Adam Kneale successfully sued the Western Bulldogs, alleging the club failed to protect him from sexual abuse committed by a volunteer during the 1980s.

A jury found the club liable to the plaintiff in negligence for injuries caused by sexual abuse.  It awarded $5.9 million in damages—the largest sexual abuse payout in Australian legal history. Although these were later reduced on appeal, the club’s liability was upheld, setting a critical precedent for establishing liability for sporting organisations.

USA Gymnastics

In the United States, the case against Michigan State, the USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic Committee perhaps represents the most high-profile instance of child sexual abuse within the sports world.

Commencing in the 1990s, more than 500 athletes alleged that they were sexually assaulted by gym owners, coaches and staff working for gymnastics programs across the country. After hundreds initiated legal action against Michigan State, the USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic Committee, settlements totalling nearly $900 million were reached. 

The main actor in the abuse was Larry Nassar, a national team doctor and osteopathic physician in MSU’s athletic department. It was alleged by more than 265 women that Nassar had sexually abused them under the pretence of providing medical treatment.

The Sheldon Review

Similarly, in the United Kingdom, the Sheldon Review investigated allegations of historical abuse in association football. Examining claims of abuse between 1970 and 2005, the review found institutional failings by the FA in addressing concerns and implementing safeguards. Moreover, it exposed a lacklustre culture within the association that was apathetic to concerns and unreactive to allegations.

Royal Commission Findings 

The Royal Commission into Institutional abuse was a watershed moment within Australian society. In the context of sport and recreation, it was particularly pertinent –  exposing institutional failures and the need for further reform.

Nature and Extent

The forms of child sexual abuse reported in sport and recreation included penetrative and non-penetrative contact, violations of privacy, exposure to sexual acts and material, sexual exploitation, and combinations of these.

Over 408 survivors recounted experiences of child sexual abuse in sport and recreation settings. Of these survivors, abuse occurred within 344 different sport and recreation institutions across Australia.

Risk Factors

Based on survivor accounts, abuse most commonly occurred in settings where supervision was limited or adult authority went unchecked. This includes overseas or regional camps, overnight competitions, billeting arrangements, and other locker-room or travel contexts.

The key risk factors for abuse identified were;

• Grooming via coaching relationships, inappropriate touching under the guise of help, and blurring of professional boundaries.
• Performance-oriented culture that prized athletic achievement over personal safety.
• Adult-centric authority, where coaches held disproportionate control over young athletes.

Institutional Failings

As a whole, the commission found that sporting institutions were beleaguered by a variety of underlying deficiencies and failures.

1. Weak Governance
   • Leadership often prioritised reputation and performance, at the cost of safety.
   • Little oversight of coaches or volunteers with child access.
2. Lackluster Reporting
   • Complaints were inadequately recorded, investigated, or escalated.
   • Institutions routinely failed to report abuse to civil authorities
3. Limited Awareness 
   • Minimal child protection awareness among staff, coaches, and volunteers.
   • Policies existed only in form, with little communication, implementation, or monitoring
4. Inadequate Recordkeeping 
   • Records were fragmented, incomplete, and often inaccessible across institutions

Opportunities for Reform

Based on its findings, the commission offered four critical recommendations to reform the response of sporting institutions to child sexual abuse, including;

1. Mandatory child safety policies standardised across all sporting organisations.
2. Mandatory training and education for those in child-facing roles on recognising and responding to abuse.
3. Improved systems for responding to complaints, including clear escalation pathways and reporting to external authorities.
4. Better recordkeeping and information-sharing protocols.

Looking Ahead

The legal allegations against Mark Heaney and the subsequent legal action against Sydney Swans underscores the vulnerabilities that young athletes face, prompting a broader conversation about the role of sporting institutions in creating a safe culture for children. Whilst legal forms of redress exist, the Royal Commission clearly highlights the need for further reform to ensure that children are protected and institutions are kept accountable.

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