Krien cites an example of this happening to professional female football players on The Footy Show.

It is difficult to imagine any profession in which it would be deemed acceptable for a man to ask a woman about her breasts and about her menstrual cycle in a public forum when it bears no relevance to the topic. Through careful research the author documents a fascinating and sometimes horrifying subculture that seems to have remained essentially unchanged in its gender relations, protected and preserved by the almost religious fervour with which Australians regard football and footballers. Unfortunately, it would seem that for the most part the women in these scenarios are shown little respect as human beings. The effect of having this female input is that finally the behaviour of male footballers towards women is being reported and what is coming to light are some cases in which neither consent nor refusal has been obtained before women are ‘shared’ (in group sex) between footballers as part of a male bonding ritual. Krien makes the point that despite women making up a substantial portion of the fan base of Aussie rules, women have had to fight hard to be able to report on football on an equal footing with their male counterparts, and to occupy positions of power within the football world, such as club boards. To her credit Krien tables this potential bias up front: ‘.here I am, hugging the grandmother in the defendant’s corner, and that’s a problem, don’t you think?’ She does, however, manage to use the case as a springboard to explore the state of affairs on a broader scale in relation to football and women, and the complexity of sexual relations and sexual consent at this time in Australian society. As a result, the reader is left with the sense that Krien is constantly struggling against the current, trying to maintain some kind of objective point of view but being swept along by the prevailing one, in this case the Dyers, due to her proximity to them. Instead Krien spends the three weeks of the trial in the company of the defendant and his family, something she describes as ‘uncomfortable’ at times. It is a curious account of the case itself, almost hemiplegic in form, in that Krien has no access to the complainant (‘Sarah Wesley’, another pseudonym) or to Sarah’s statement made in the courtroom. Night Games is an account of the events surrounding the trial of Justin Dyer (a pseudonym), a VFL football player, who was accused of rape in the period following the second grand final match between Collingwood and St Kilda in 2010.

Night Games by Anna Krien