Sport – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Eliminating Concussion and CTE From Australian Rules Football

Every time a sporting body is confronted with concussion data, someone inevitably asks whether the game can be played without the risk. In most industries, that question is the starting point for a “so far as is reasonably practicable” (SFAIRP) analysis. In sport, it’s treated as heresy. But if we apply the same occupational health and safety (OHS) logic to Australian rules football that we apply to construction, mining or manufacturing, the answer is, if you want to eliminate concussion and the risks of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), you have to eliminate the mechanisms that cause it. And once you do that, you no longer have the game as we know it.

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AFL, CTE and SFAIRP: When “the rough and tumble” becomes a foreseeable harm

The death of 23‑year‑old footballer Nick Lowden should force the Australian Football League (AFL) and every sporting body that claims to care about player welfare to confront the fact that the risks of brain injury in Australian football are no longer mysterious, emerging, or debatable. They are foreseeable, documented, and cumulative. And once a risk is foreseeable, the occupational health and safety (OHS) duty to eliminate or minimise it so far as is reasonably practicable (SFAIRP) applies.

A Four Corners investigation to be broadcast on June 29, 2026, examines Lowden’s death. (This article is based on some preliminary reporting on the issue by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

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Professional Sport as a Workplace: Elijah Hollands, Mental Health, and Employer OHS Duties

Most countries and regions seem to have a sport of cultural significance. Australia has several, but all professional sports are played in workplaces, the players are employees, and the sporting clubs are employers. Most have a supervisory and administrative body. Recently, an Australian Rules Football player, Elijah Hollands, displayed signs of a mental health condition during a match. Some spectators noticed that “something was wrong”; some players noticed this at the time, but Hollands played three-quarters of the game, offering only one direct contribution to play, before he was taken off, to only return later in the last quarter. The ABC and 7News provide a good background to the situation

The questions that remain unanswered are why Holland’s employer did not remove a clearly unwell player earlier, and whether the Carlton Football Club breached its duty of care.

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Unsafe Back Then, Unsafe Now. Why Leadership Must Change

To truly understand occupational health and safety (OHS) issues, it is necessary to examine OHS concerns beyond one’s own industry. Recently, this blog has reported on some parliamentary debates on OHS in the horse racing industry. The November edition of The Monthly includes an exposé of the OHS of Australia’s horse racing industry by freelance writer, Madison Griffiths, with lessons for all of us on morality, Godliness, accountability and leadership. The article is paywalled but well worth the purchase.

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Ministerial Evasion and the Politics of Workplace Safety

Further to last week’s article about occupational health and safety (OHS) in horse racing, Minister Pettersson provided clarification to the ACT Parliament, sort of.

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The ACT’s Evasive Response to Horse Racing Safety Questions

On September 17, 2025, Jo Clay, deputy leader of the ACT Greens, asked the Minister for Skills, Training and Industrial Relations, Michael Pettersson, about workplace deaths in the Australian Capital Territory horse racing industry, pointedly:

“What regulatory action is the government taking to try to make this industry safer?”

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Australian Football Needs Better Workers Compensation

[Guest post by Eric Windholz]

Last week I again had the pleasure to contribute to the Headfirst: A Concussion Podcast, this time talking about recent developments concerning the compensation of athletes (and in particular, AFL (Australian Football League) players) suffering concussion. The key takeaway – the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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