As a woman who loves AFL, I feel palpable despair. Why did it take so long to put us at the centre of this story? | Jill Stark

Commentary around the Sydney Swans case has made it painfully clear that women’s safety is not valued as highly as the sporting success of its male stars As a woman who loves AFL, the events of the last few days have left me wondering if there is a home for me in this game. It has been hard to stomach watching allegations of sexual assault that may be linked to some Sydney Swans players being framed as an “unmitigated disaster” for the club’s finals chances. Five players have now been sanctioned by the AFL for the rest of the season, independent of the police investigation. But since news broke on Monday, the football commentariat’s early coverage of the allegations has largely been about how the incident “threatens to derail Sydney’s season”. One senior commentator said the thing that made him most angry was that the Swans players may miss out on their last chance of winning a grand final. Any alleged victims have largely been erased, as pundits wring their hands about how “mortifying” the allegations are for “player, club and code”. When I spoke about this publicly, many men were quick to defend the framing, arguing that it was because commentators were constrained by what they c