A Growing Movement for Safety and Accountability in Sport
Jaydan Thomson, a basketball player and coach, used to dread heading home after work. As a member of the Ipswich Basketball Association, she would often encounter her alleged stalker in the car park. The man was a fellow NBL1 player from the men’s team, and Thomson claims he would sit in his car waiting for her to lock up. This harassment eventually led her to take out a temporary protection order and domestic violence order against him in April 2022. Despite this, the individual never faced criminal charges.
Thomson raised her concerns multiple times with the club and even escalated the issue to Basketball Queensland. She was particularly worried about his involvement in coaching a youth team and being invited to speak at a school. However, she believes the club did not adequately address the situation. They noted the matter but allowed him to continue playing.
The ABC has contacted the Ipswich Basketball Association and the former general manager for comment, but no response has been received. Basketball Queensland stated that it takes all matters relating to the wellbeing, safety, and integrity of its members seriously and that its policies align with Sport Integrity Australia’s standards. However, Thomson remains disappointed by the lack of action, believing that the handling of the incident highlights a broader issue of insufficient safeguarding for women and girls in sports systems.
“I don’t think anyone believed me, besides my own family,” Thomson told ABC Sport. “No one believes me. It makes you believe that it wasn’t that bad … That maybe I was overreacting.”
When she shared her story on social media, she was overwhelmed by the support from people with similar experiences. Many reached out to her, sharing their own stories and expressing concern about the individual involved. “Talking about it made me understand that we’ve got to actually speak up,” she said. “Speaking up does a lot more than not, especially when you have the right resources and support.”
Thomson will be part of a national protest at the end of May calling for greater accountability from clubs regarding the safety of women and girls. The event, known as “Wear Red Round,” aims to highlight issues of gender-based violence and advocate for better safeguarding measures.
Protests Across the Nation
Last year, football teams across Victoria wore red armbands to protest the axing of state government women-in-sport programs and to honor women who had been victims of gender-based violence. The protests followed the closure of the Office for Women in Sport and Recreation and the end of Preventing Violence Through Sport Grants in the state budget. Teams such as Bass Coast Breakers, Mount Alexander Falcons, Darebin Falcons, and others participated in the initiative.
This year, the movement, spearheaded by the social media advocacy group Not All Clubs, will expand nationwide and include various sports codes, including football, basketball, rugby, netball, and surfing. Players across the weekend of May 29–31 will wear two armbands: one to honor victims of gendered violence and another to call for greater accountability in safeguarding within sport.
Official numbers of participating clubs and leagues are still unknown as registrations are pending.
Reprimands for Speaking Up
Ruby Campbell, a women’s football player, will join the protest at her club, Sandhurst in the Central Victorian Football League. She believes women often face negative consequences for speaking up about their situations or advocating for themselves in grassroots sport. Last year, she was reprimanded by her league for breaching social media policy after calling out an umpire for a misogynistic comment on Facebook.
The umpire had responded to a comment about women’s football coverage by stating that female games were “hardly worth writing about.” Campbell replied by tagging the Bendigo Umpires Association and writing, “It’s great to see umpires who are appointed to female games believe in us and support us!!!! Do better [named redacted]. We are so glad our games pay your misogynistic wage.”
Following this, Campbell received a “please explain” from the league and a subsequent reprimand. “Why am I in trouble?” she asked. “It feels like you can’t ask for too much, like ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you’ type thing.”
Despite feeling like “the angry woman” or “loud woman” in the room, Campbell remains committed to being an advocate. “It feels like you’re consistently trying to correct behaviour and that makes you feel like the bad person,” she said. “But it’s not angry for asking for the bare minimum.”
Campbell plays for the Wedge-Tailed Eagles Football Club, which defected from Kyneton Football Netball Club in late 2024 due to a “horrible, volatile environment.” She has seen women’s teams across her region fold due to a lack of support. Reporting by the ABC revealed widespread issues in Victoria, with players from various clubs claiming poor treatment and inequitable access to resources.
Not Just Grateful to Get to Play
Courtney Plowman, 30, who comes from an Aussie Rules background and now plays and coaches girls state rugby in Adelaide, has witnessed a “boys club mentality” throughout her years in sport. She will take part in the red armbands protest with her rugby club, Old Collegians, where she is lucky to be at as the men are “champions for us” and help break down barriers, including equal sharing of resources. However, she is aware that this is not the case for others.
“Most old footy teams that I’ve been a part of and previous clubs, it’s very ‘boys’ club’,” Plowman told ABC Sport. “It starts from the top down, basically, and it not being a ‘boys will be boys’ club. That can be very toxic and unsafe space for women to come into and young girls to come into.”
Growing up, Plowman said there was a notion amongst her generation of having to be grateful to just get the chance to play at all. However, with the next generation coming through, she’s seeing a demand for better and more equal conditions. “[I] want it to be the start of the conversation, especially with violence against women, it’s the start of it. We’ve got a long way to go,” she said.
