Calacus Weekly Hit & Miss – Football's Family & Swimming Australia

Every Monday we look at the best and worst communicators in the sports world from the previous week.

HIT – THE FOOTBALL FAMILY

Football is all about identity.

The tribal nature of the game creates rivalries based on community, location and club colours but last weekend showed the power of sport at its finest, with fans and clubs coming together to support Denmark midfielder Christian Eriksen.

Millions of fans around the world watched in horror as Eriksen collapsed midway through the opening EURO2020 match against Finland, with his team-mates huddling around while medics resuscitated him.

And it speaks volumes about the power of sport that rivalries were put to one side as the sports world prayed for his recovery.

Whether it was right or wrong for the teams to finish the match later that evening, the outpouring of support for Eriksen, from the moment fans of both Denmark and Finland who chanted his name, underlined the respect and decency of the football world in all its glory.

Eriksen, who plays for Inter Milan and previously shone for Tottenham Hotspur, found unexpected support from Arsenal and AC Milan while later on Saturday evening, his Inter team-mate Romelu Lukaku, dedicated his opening goal against Russia to the Danish International.

After scoring for South Korea, Tottenham forward Son Heung-min said “Christian Eriksen, I love you” peering down into a television camera while Harry Kane tweeted “Chris. I’m sending all my love to you and your family. Stay strong mate.”

EURO2020 governing body UEFA awarded the Star of the Match to Eriksen, wishing him a speedy recovery and in a statement President Aleksander Ceferin said: “Moments like this put everything in life into perspective.  I wish Christian a full and speedy recovery and pray his family has strength and faith.

“At these times, the unity of the football family is so strong and he and his family carry with them the good wishes and prayers of everyone. I heard of fans of both teams chanting his name.

“Football is a beautiful game and Christian plays it beautifully.”

Eriksen released a public statement through his agent on the Monday after his collapse, saying: “Thank you, I won't give up. I feel better now - but I want to understand what's happened, I want to say thank you all for what you did for me.”

The outpouring of support from players, associations and fans of all persuasions underlined the capacity football has to bring people together regardless of rivalries and how sport can have a positive effect on society in moments of apparent drama.

Eriksen will not have foreseen it when he walked on the field at the start of the game, but as he recovers from his cardiac arrest, the positive effects on the football family will be felt for time to come.

MISS – SWIMMING AUSTRALIA

Discussions around sexism in sport and the need for greater equality and representation among athletes, coaches and administrators have been major talking points for so many years.

In recent years, we have seen many positive steps taken globally in breaking down the barriers of inequality, but progress is often halted by a story of gender discrimination.

So far in 2021, we’ve outed the likes of the head of the Tokyo Olympics Organising Committee for disregarding the role of women in sport, to Idaho Lawmakers preventing transgender women from competing in sport.

Unfortunately, the sad thing is that there are still plenty of similar instances of sexism and evidence of gender inequality.

This week saw yet another example after Australian swimmer Maddie Groves withdrew from upcoming Olympic trials for Tokyo 2020, citing exploitation for her decision. 

Groves tweeted: “Let this be a lesson to all misogynistic perverts in sport and their boot lickers – you can no longer exploit young women and girls, body shame or medically gaslight them and then expect them to represent you so you can earn your annual bonus. Time’s UP.”

This isn’t the first time the 26-year-old has made such claims, having complained about being made to feel uncomfortable while swimming in November 2020.

Groves, who won silver medals in the 200m butterfly and the 4x100m at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, also raised additional concerns about body shaming via her Instagram page, just days after announcing her intentions to withdraw from the trials.

According to Kieren Perkins, President of Swimming Australia, Groves has made no official complaint.

Surely, simply because Groves chose to share her concerns via social media, it shouldn’t prevent an investigation into the culture of Swimming Australia?

And for eight months to pass since the original claims suggests that little effort was really made to communicate effectively with Groves from Swimming Australia.

In fact, since these revelations, fresh allegations of abuse within Australian swimming have been made. Some of these include claims that coaches make ‘oinking’ noise at swimmers and that females are fat-shamed while in the pool.

Swimming Australia has a culture problem and nothing has been done about it until now.

Responding officially to the allegations in a statement, Swimming Australia said: “Any allegations of misconduct are taken seriously by Swimming Australia. As part of our ongoing work, our ethics and integrity committee will be meeting today and working on this path forward and the board will be meeting tomorrow.

“As we have said before, these allegations are concerning and we want to provide the best environment for our athletes.

“We are committed to continuing to operate in the best interests of our athletes and the sport.”

While it is encouraging to see these allegations being taken seriously, it is so disappointing that a sporting governing body took so long to act on initial allegations and for failing to notice the concerns within their organisation.

For it to take Groves ‘withdrawal’ from the Olympic Games trials to capture the attention of the officials suggests that her original claims were just not taken seriously.

Swimming is not the only sport in Australia to be dealing with allegations of abuse of concerns with culture, with the Australian Human Rights Commission identifying systemic risk factors of abuse, misconduct and bullying in an independent review into gymnastics in the country.

With the Olympics just six weeks away, this isn’t a great look for the Australian team.

To lose someone like Groves, an athlete who has won two silver Olympic medals for her country, is a huge blow to the Aussie swimming team. they only have themselves to blame.

There is still an awful long way to go to eradicate sexism in organisations like Swimming Australia.

Sports governing bodies must do more to take accusations of discrimination and inequality seriously, if they are to root out problems such as these.