AUSTRALIA LETTER PADRAIG COLLINSTHE AUSTRALIAN Football League (AFL) is the most popular sport in Australia. It has the highest attendances at games, the biggest TV ratings and the most money. Its current broadcast deal is worth AU$780 million (€479 million) over five years.
On average, AFL players earn close to $200,000 (€123,000) a year. Many are paid considerably more than that. To say they are high profile is an understatement. In the AFL dominated cities of Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, any player misbehaviour makes TV, radio, newspaper, magazine and internet headlines.
Allegations of drug abuse among some AFL players - and the subsequent sacking of one player - led to Sydney Swans captain Leo Barry saying: "It is a responsibility of the clubs to keep educating the players and keep on reinforcing the dangers of illicit drugs."
But whatever about their efforts on drug education, the AFL has gone headfirst into sex education for the league's 640 players.
Just before the start of the new football season, they are all being compulsorily shown a DVD to teach them how to behave with women.
It's not a "how to" though; it's more a guide to basic morality and decency.
Sample questions and multiple choice answers include: "You are with a girl who has had too much to drink. Do you (a) get her some water, (b) call her a taxi or, (c) take her back to your place for sex?"
Another poses the question: "You are called by your mate's girlfriend into her bedroom, as she mistakenly thinks you are her boyfriend. Do you (a) go and hop into bed and pretend to be him or (b), do you walk away?"
Voyeuristic tendencies are also quizzed. "Your mate and his girlfriend are having sex. You can see them. Do you (a) watch or (b), not watch?"
It might be funny if it were not so serious.
The DVD is part of the AFL's Respect and Responsibility programme. Its co ordinator Melanie Heenan says the purpose is to "prompt confident decision making in situations that can be quite complex".
Not surprisingly, some women's groups don't see it quite that way.
Melinda Tankard Reist, the director of Women's Forum Australia, asked: "What's next: teaching men not to bash women over the head with a club and drag them into a cave by their hair?
"The DVD is a rude wake-up call . . . We have so failed in the very basics of civilised human interaction that the AFL has been forced to hire a swag of actors and a film crew . . . to help players understand that perhaps it's not a good idea to pretend to be your best mate so you can have sex with his girlfriend.
"If this is what's required, then we really are starting from ground zero in human relationships," Tankard Reist added.
The video reportedly tells players girls will throw themselves at them and warns them to ensure the woman is 100 per cent willing before pursuing sex.
"Young men come into football and go from not being able to get a date . . . to suddenly having half a nightclub throwing themselves at them," Eddie McGuire, president of Melbourne's Collingwood club, told a radio station.
AFL spokesman Patrick Keane has rejected criticism of the DVD.
"If the players already know the message then we've done something that wasn't required, but as always at the AFL, it's better that we do something. So in the same way we do things with religious and racial vilification and the drug code, respect and responsibility is something we do as well," he said.
Asked about the simplistic content, Keane said the questions were similar to those presented to 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds at high school and that was the age players were drafted into the league.
The AFL is not the first sport in Australia to look at ways of teaching players how to behave with women. Four years ago the Australian Rugby League hired Catharine Lumby, a University of Sydney gender studies expert, as an adviser after a series of sex scandals in the code.
She told Sydney's Daily Telegraph that she approved of the DVD.
"I think the AFL is doing the right thing - it's not just footballers, but all young men who need better education . . . to think through the way they manage sexual encounters," she said.
"What they're doing is covering all bases. If you design a DVD that doesn't speak to the realities of young men's lives . . . it's not going to have any impact. They'll just say 'these people don't know what they're talking about'."
However, Tankard Reist said the video's questions did not convey the seriousness of sexual assault. "Will the statement, 'Sexual assault: maximum penalty, 14 years imprisonment', appear in the final cut?" she asked.