It’s about our society accepting these types of clearly violent behaviors. The reality is that footy players are looked up to and idolized by many people, especially young men.
When we laugh off and not punish pure thuggery and are accepting of it, we are signaling that this type of behavior is also acceptable off the field.
Our society is not nearly hard enough on violence, especially towards women. This notion that boys will be boys, is so wildly accepted in the AFL, and unfortunately in the wider society too.
We [censored] on about the illicit drug problems in the AFL, but are totally fine to let players gut punch each other off the ball… because that’s not at all sending the wrong message!