AFL - Friendly Fire Rule

[Beaussie]

AFL Friendly Fire rule - All's not fair in love and war
by DWH
14 June 2005
http://www.talkingfooty.com/soapbox

In my opinion, given that the primary premise behind reporting football players is to ensure the safety of other players, we must consider that all situations where players are placed at unreasonable risk or worse injured, due to inappropriate conduct by other players, are to be considered reportable situations, regardless of who is involved in an incident, be it an opposing player or team mate.

If we accept this premise which we believe to be correct in regard to why we report football players, then should we also agree with the following premise? If you are reckless and accidentally strike or place at unreasonable risk of injury your own team mate, you should be reported just as if you had struck or placed at unreasonable risk an opposition player. We currently report players that pose a OHS (Occupational Health and Safety) risk to other players or in fact cause injury to other players, due to a breach of the rules that are designed to protect all participants welfare.

The point of this, is that in satisfying our primary premise, it would be a gross negation of commitment to this fundamental charter, to which we have subscribed as being in the best interests of player safety for all, if we were to ignore it. Additionally, this is a clear cut issue of OHS which is applicable to all parties involved in the game, and not just applicable to one teams conduct in relation to another team.

Reckless conduct endangering the health and safety of others in the work place would be considered unacceptable and a breach of OHS regulations, no matter what work team one belonged to. In the work place you do have competing teams and individuals who compete for a range of benefits, whilst conducting the primary work duties and seeking to achieve a range of goals. Such competition results in certain teams and individuals receiving reward for their efforts. None the less there are rules of conduct that apply to all team players, in terms of teams and individuals, to help ensure the safety of all parties.

There are so many examples of this rule in society and I think its about time the AFL was bought into line in this regard.

For example; If a military unit destroys its own units due to "friendly fire" and is found to be grossly negligent, reckless, careless etc... it will be charged and punished. If a manufacturing company is careless in its approach to provision of appropriate safety equipment to its employees, it can be found guilty of negligence. In case law it has been found that a "professional" has a duty of care towards clients. This concept however can be further extended to a duty of care toward fellow employees. No matter what the work place, be it a sporting field or an office, construction site, or manufacturing facility, the OHS rules for each group should apply equally to all. This is written in law.

Similarly a tri-directional duty of care relationship can be shown to exist between the AFL and the clubs and clubs and the players. Although the game of football is said to be a contact sport, it is still incumbent upon each participant to exercise that duty of care towards all other participants, not just those on the opposing team. This is why we have rules that protect players safety. It's a matter of OHS for all, in a non discriminatory manner, so that the concept of OHS can be legitimately fulfilled. Failing to attain this duty of care, means that such a concept carries less weight, thus nullifying the principle of OHS, which would breach the very charter to which it has been subscribed, in the endeavour to help ensure that the work place or the sports field, offers the necessary levels of protection to all participants in a non discriminatory manor, regardless of ones station within the organisation or the playing arena.

In terms of AFL football there is in fact no difference to this premise. Players in pursuit of victory and reward, that deliberately or otherwise, recklessly or carelessly injure, or endanger their own players, are thus just as accountable as if they had injured, or placed in danger an opposition player. The measure of this rule is as follows; Would the act if committed against an opposing player, have been deemed to place an opposing player at unreasonable risk of injury? or have likely resulted in injury? If so, then the action should be treated just the same, as the primary premise of having such rules to protect all players and not just those on the opposing team.

OHS is designed to protect all employees and not just those against whom a particular employee competes
in their place of work, be them competitors from other organisations, or other organisational units within the same organisation. As a generic analogy, consider building construction sites, where many different companies must conform to the same OHS safety regulations that are designed to protect all workers, not just within one organisation but across a range of construction organisations. Any person, or employee who engages in conduct that is considered reckless and endangering the welfare of others must be held to account. There are no boundaries for this rule, and should not be any. The rule is designed to protect the welfare of all, regardless of what team or team player may be involved.

In my opinion, the AFL does not appear to apply this rule properly and in fact it could be viewed that the AFL appears to be in breach of OHS regulations, because of its apparent lack of application and policing of this fundamental premise of OHS for all. It's all part of industrial democracy in the work place. In terms of the AFL, the players work place is the football field, the training facilities and the professional conduct they receive from their management and superiors and other team mates.

There was a recent incident where a player appeared to recklessly charge the pack contesting the mark and
injured his own team mate. If we apply this duty of care concept fairly across the board in a non-partisan, non-discriminatory manner to correctly meet OHS obligations, such incidents should likely find such plays as in breach of the duty of care each player owes to each other. Thus on this basis such situations would result in the player shown to be negligent and in breach of such duty of care, to be found guilty and receive punishment as appropriate, such as that which would be awarded if the incident involved an opposing player rather than a player on the same team. In such a case the judge and jury would find the perpetrator guilty !

Apart from protecting the fundamental rights to the fullest degree of all players in terms of OHS principles, more appropriate application of the duty of care concept will further help clean up the game by making players more aware of their actions toward all other players and not just those in opposition. Full application of the concept will also reduce player down time due to fewer injuries resulting from greater disincentive for players to be reckless or careless in their style of play. This can only help improve the player up time and thus injury statistics for the game. This means more star players playing more football more of the time. This can only be good for the game in all facets, but in particular from commercial and spectator perspectives.

A less obvious benefit of consistent and impartial application of OHS principles to the AFL playing arena, could also be that umpires are better placed to apply rules consistently. This is because umpires operate under real time stressful conditions and have to make snap judgment sometimes drawing from their subconscious understanding of the rules of game. By allowing incidents to have two rules sets, i.e. one for the team mate and one for the opposing player, the sub conscious rule set is clouded more than necessary, as the subconscious decisional logic process has to consider this additional information (i.e. team mate or opposing player) when being drawn upon by the umpire in his conscious state. One problem is this inconsistent application of breach of rules in regard to reckless play causing or endangering other players of injury. When a reckless event occurs, subconsciously the umpire is processing whether the event involves a team mate of an opposition player. Only then is the next decision step entered in to. The sheer volume of fuzzy logic involved, is such that the computational overhead can be quite significant because of this duel information processing requirement again subconsciously that links to consciously processed decisions.

This duality of sub conscious rule sets and hence information processing by the brain, slows down the decision making process and under stress allows for more failures of good judgment, as two sets of conditional information must be processed and dealt with at a subconscious level. If however the rules are applied singularly at a subconscious level, then the amounts of decisional logic at the subconscious and hence conscious level is reduced to a one rule data set instead of two data sets, being one for team mates and one for opposing players. We want to simplify the umpires information processing load so they can make better more accurate decisions more of the time. This also can only serve to improve the quality of the game for all concerned, i.e. players, umpires, spectators and administrators.

The game needs to change and get into line with other work place standards in terms of the concept and
principles of OHS obligations.

I rest may case!

[Beaussie]

Certainly is an interesting topic and one that to be honest I had never really considered. The following quote in particular got my attention.

Would the act if committed against an opposing player, have been deemed to place an opposing player at unreasonable risk of injury? or have likely resulted in injury?

Personally whilst I think the issues raised definately have merit, I wouldn't like to see the AFL go down the track of having players from the same team reported when such collisions occur. Just doesn't seem right to me.

[King-Eliagh]

Absolute shit. I had to stop reading. I heard one of the commentators bring up the point in a match over the weekend and I can see how it can be thought of as strange that for the same act one would recieve punishment if it were against an opposition player.

I think the whole point is ridiculous though. Why dont we wrap these afl players in cotton wool and change the rules to kiss and catch out there on the footy field. Its a contact sport and the sooner people realise that and go back to the days when players could fight it out the better. In all seriousness though don't convictions at the judiciary usually result from the 'intent' of the act? Obviously there would be not much chance of intentionally bashing your teammates unless wayne carey was out there.

Fuck I hope there's a massive blue in the State Of Origin tonight.

[Grim Reaper]

Holy Allah what is that all about? I reckon players should arm themselves on the footy field, just like that black dude in The Last Boy Scout!

[Beaussie]

In all seriousness though don't convictions at the judiciary usually result from the 'intent' of the act?

Not necessarily, can't one get suspended for a reckless act?

Obviously there would be not much chance of intentionally bashing your teammates

True, and whilst I agree what is proposed in the article is too extreme, it was interesting all the same.

[King-Eliagh]

In all seriousness though don't convictions at the judiciary usually result from the 'intent' of the act?

Not necessarily, can't one get suspended for a reckless act?

Note the word 'usually' in my quote above. And to go one step further a reckless act often is the result of reckless intentions wouldnt you think?

[Beaussie]

In all seriousness though don't convictions at the judiciary usually result from the 'intent' of the act?

Not necessarily, can't one get suspended for a reckless act?

Note the word 'usually' in my quote above. And to go one step further a reckless act often is the result of reckless intentions wouldnt you think?

Reckless intentions? I don't think you can say a reckless act is the same as reckless intentions. To me it just doesn't make sense nor sound right.

[King-Eliagh]

Allow me to give you an example of what many called a reckless player in the nrl. One john hopoate. Now his final act that resulted in his expulsion was indeed what we may call a reckless act. He flew in for a head high that to me was so obvious that it just wasn't a mistake or an accident, therefore we have reckless intent.

I agree some suspensions are dealt to players who honestly didnt intend to injure or play outside the rules however I stand by my claim that

convictions at the judiciary usually result from the 'intent' of the act