Footballers and alcohol: why don't they learn?8 November 2010, 7:55 amThe RSPCA is worried about the dog. The Canberra Raiders are in shock - the NRL is livid. And Joel Monaghan - the man at the centre of the latest and truly bizarre footy scandal - is facing the sack and a humiliating future as the butt of endlessly cruel canine jokes. They've already started. How's your Pal? Isn't life a bitch?
Talk of a photo gone viral on Twitter surfaced in the Canberra media on Thursday morning.
Early that afternoon, Raiders' chief executive Don Furner was scheduled to hold a news conference to launch the team's 2011 membership drive. Shocking timing.
When asked about the photo, purporting to show Monaghan engaged in a lewd act (receiving oral sex from a dog), Furner said he hadn't seen it but was "as dumbfounded as everyone else".
The story was reported initially in radio news bulletins along the lines of "the Raiders are investigating an alleged incident involving a player" and Furner's comments were run on Thursday's 666 ABC Canberra Drive show. On legal advice the player was not named though his identity was circulating on social media sites.
Monaghan's manager Jim Banaghan wasn't returning calls but just before 6:00pm that evening released a statement in which his client apologised for simulating an act in "a moment of abject stupidity brought about by too much drink and a complete lack of any thought process".
Monaghan, said Banaghan, "... is a genuinely good person who is simply shattered by a moment of sheer madness."
By Friday the story was major news and comment was raging on radio talkback and Twitter.
Abject stupidity and sheer madness indeed. But what was the crazier action? Getting that close to the Labrador, or allowing someone to take a photo?
It's not as though footy players haven't been warned. Over and over again. Just a few months ago, the Raiders took part in an Australian Federal Police course on cyber security where the perils of technology were spelt out.
And given the depressing number of high-profile scandals involving sports stars and alcoholic excess - and education seminars to drive the message home - why haven't they learned to curb their behaviour?
Maybe most have - in public at least.
In this case the star in question was not out on the town at the mercy of snapping fans or professional photographers.
He was at someone's house, as Furner says "at an-of-season drinking session."
Did a team-mate take the photo? Was it one of his mates who posted in on Twitter? Did others urge him on? And if so, how much blame should they shoulder for what could cost Monaghan his first grade career?
Banaghan says, "The fact that someone has sought to compound the situation further by the use of social media only adds to the trauma."
But he goes on to say that "Joel accepts that it is his actions alone that are at fault".
Radio talkback comment has been mixed. One caller (female and a professed dog lover) said she'd seen the photo and wasn't offended. Another (male, parent) said the scandal was the sort of thing that's deterring him from signing up his eight-year-old to play footy.
Text messages ranged from support for Monaghan -
Rugby league players have done worse things to women and not gotten (sic) the sack ... and ...
Do not sack him. Nobody died he did not physically do anything just pretended. I would be more inclined to sack anyone who drink drives ... to ...
Sack Joel and the drinking organiser ... This is animal cruelty however you look at it ... and ...
Haven't you got anything else to talk about it was a joke.Strange, stupid, bizarre, grotesque, sickening, disgusting, appalling. There are no shortages of adjectives flying around to describe how many people - footy fans or not - feel about what happened.
The RSPCA is now calling on the ACT Government to outlaw the act of 'Zoophilia' (bestiality). The Raiders' Board meets today to determine Monaghan's future. The NRL says it's closely monitoring the Raiders' response.
And Monaghan? The 2008 Raiders' Player of the Year, who's represented Australia in the Kangaroos squad and New South Wales in the State of Origin - the player known as a bit of a joker and prankster but who's never been in serious trouble before - is now undergoing counselling to help deal with what his manager describes as "an act of stupidity that will haunt him for the rest of his life".
It's too hard to imagine why anyone would think a "prank" involving a simulated sex act with a dog could be in any way funny or amusing.
Or why sending the photo through cyberspace is in any way a good idea.
But perhaps it's even harder to understand why some elite footballers still don't get it.
Louise Maher is the presenter of Drive on 666 ABC CanberraSource: Tag: Rugby League - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Topic: Footballers and alcohol: why don't they learn?
