A Legend’s Fall: Nicky Winmar and a Day Nobody Wanted

Some stories in footy you’d give anything to not have to write. The court finding Nicky Winmar guilty of assaulting a woman is one of teh hardest ones I’ve had to sit with this year.

There’s no easy way in, no clever angle, no cheeky Collingwood gag to soften the blow. A court has found one of the most iconic men ever to have played this game guilty of a serious offence. We have to look at that clearly, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us.

What the Court Found

The court returned a guilty verdict against Winmar following a hearing that centred on an incident from last year. During proceedings, the woman involved told the court she had been fearful for her life on the night in question. Those are confronting words. They should be confronting words.

It is important to note what we know and what we don’t. The court found Winmar guilty — that is the legal finding, and it deserves to be reported accurately and without spin. The sentencing phase is still ahead, and we’ll report that when it comes. But the finding of guilt has been handed down. That’s the fact we’re dealing with today.

Any victim of family violence or assault deserves to be believed, supported and protected. Full stop. If a court has found that a woman was assaulted and was fearful for her life, that matters enormously — and it matters more than any football career, no matter how legendary.

The Man and the Moment

Look, anyone who grew up watching footy knows what Nicky Winmar means to this game. The 1993 moment at Victoria Park — and yes, that was our ground, and yes, I have complicated feelings about the whole thing — is genuinely one of the most significant moments in Australian sporting history. Full stop.

Winmar lifted his St Kilda jumper, pointed to his skin, and told a section of the crowd and the wider world: I am proud of who I am. In a sport that had tolerated — and in some cases encouraged — horrendous racism toward Indigenous players for decades, that image was electric. It changed things. You could argue it started a conversation that the AFL is still having today, and rightly so.

He was brilliant, too. Silky, courageous, one of teh great wingmen of any era. The kind of player who made you stop whatever you were doing when he got the footy.

All of that is true. And it doesn’t change what a court found this week. Both things sit alongside each other, uncomfortably, and we’ve got to be honest about both.

Why We Can’t Look Away Just Because He’s a Legend

Here’s where I want to be direct. There’s a temptation — particularly in footy circles — to protect the legend when something like this happens. To focus on the good, minimise the findings, get a bit defensive on behalf of a bloke who was brilliant with a football.

We can’t do that. We shouldn’t do that. And frankly, that instinct is part of a wider problem sport has always had — putting performance on a pedestal so high that it becomes a shield against accountability.

A woman told a court she was fearful for her life. The court believed her enough to return a guilty finding. That woman matters. Her experience matters. More than the footy career. More than the iconic photograph. More than anyone’s comfort when reading about this.

If we only stand up for women when the bloke accused isn’t a sporting hero, then we’re not really standing up for women at all. Are we?

The AFL’s Role — and Its Responsibility

The AFL has invested a lot of energy over the years into programs around family violence and respectful relationships. They run campaigns. They put out statements. Good on them for doing it — genuinely.

But the test of how seriously any organisation takes those values isn’t in the good times. It’s in moments exactly like this one, when a former champion is on the wrong side of a court finding. What the AFL does next — whether that’s any formal response, a statement, a review of Winmar’s ambassador status or other formal connections to the game — will tell us a lot about whether those campaigns mean something real or just look good on a banner.

I’m not predicting what they’ll do. I’m saying the moment demands a thoughtful, values-based response, not a communications strategy.

What About the Complicated Legacy?

This is the question people are already asking in footy circles. Does this verdict change Winmar’s place in AFL history? Does the 1993 moment mean less now?

Honestly? That’s probably not the most important question right now — and it definately isn’t the most urgent one. The most urgent question is: is the woman involved supported, safe, and heard? Is the system around her working properly?

As for the legacy question — history is complicated. It always has been. Sport produces heroes who are also deeply flawed humans. That’s not an excuse for anything. It’s just the truth of how people work. The 1993 image still changed Australian sport. That is historically true regardless of what happened later. But we also don’t have to put Winmar on a pedestal that pretends this week’s finding didn’t happen.

You can hold complexity. You can say: that moment mattered, and this finding matters, and neither cancels the other out — but this one demands more immediate moral attention right now.

A Difficult Week for Footy to Sit With

I’ve been writing about footy for a long time now. I’ll be honest with you — I’d rather be telling you why the Pies are going to run over the top of everyone in the second half of the season, or having a whinge about a holding the ball call that went against us in the last quarter. That’s the fun stuff. That’s why we’re here, most of the time.

But footy doesn’t exist in a bubble. The men who play it and shaped it are whole human beings living whole human lives — and sometimes those lives involve terrible decisions, terrible acts, and real harm done to real people.

Nicky Winmar was found guilty by a court of law of assaulting a woman who said she was fearful for her life. We report that clearly. We don’t look away. We don’t hide behind the legacy or the legend or the beautiful football he played.

And we remember that on the other side of this story is a real woman, and her experience is the one that matters most this week.

Carn the Pies — but not today, hey. Today we just sit with this one.