Winmar Verdict: When the Icon and the Man Are Two Different Things

There are moments in footy history that stop time, and then there are moments off the field that remind you time keeps moving whether you want it to or not. Nicky Winmar’s conviction in a Bendigo court this week is firmly, uncomfortably, in that second category.

Bendigo Magistrate Trieu Huynh found Winmar, 60, guilty of three charges after determining that the woman who said he dragged her by the hair and hit her head against a door was telling the truth. Winmar had argued she was lying. The magistrate did not accept that. The conviction stands, and we need to talk about it — even when it’s hard, even when the name attached to it is one that carries so much weight in the history of this game.

The Image and the Man

If you’ve been a footy fan for more than about thirty seconds, you know the moment. Victoria Park, 1993. Nicky Winmar, playing for St Kilda, lifts his jumper and points to his skin after a brilliant performance against Collingwood — and in the process delivers one of the most powerful statements in Australian sporting history. It’s a photograph that belongs in a museum, and in many ways it already does.

That image did something genuinely important. It gave Indigenous players and supporters a rallying point at a time when racism on the terraces was vile, open and largely unchallenged. On the numbers, Indigenous representation in the AFL has grown significantly in the decades since — hovering around 10 to 11 percent of listed players in recent years despite Indigenous Australians making up roughly 3.8 percent of the national population. The game is richer for it. Winmar was part of why that shift happened.

And none of that changes what a court found this week.

Holding Two Things at Once

Here’s where I reckon a lot of footy fans get tangled up, and look, I get it — I’ve been there myself. We build these icons up. We attach meaning to them that’s bigger than any one person can possibly carry. And then when something like this happens, there’s this weird cognitive dissonance where part of your brain wants to file it away somewhere and protect the image.

But the data says — and by data I mean the verdict of a magistrate who heard all the evidence — that a woman was hurt, that she told the truth about it, and that the man who hurt her tried to say she was lying. That’s the finding. We have to sit with that.

It doesn’t erase what happened at Victoria Park. It doesn’t mean the 1993 photo loses its historical significance or its power as a symbol of Indigenous pride. But it absolutely means we cannot let that image serve as a shield. Heroes in one context can cause harm in another. Both things are real.

St Kilda’s Complicated Relationship With This

As a Doggies supporter, I can watch this one with a little bit of distance — though honestly, not that much, because Winmar’s story belongs to the whole competition in a way that transcends the red, white and black. But St Kilda in particular is going to have to navigate this carefully.

Winmar played 251 games for the Saints. He’s part of their DNA in a way that very few players are for any club. And the Saints, like every club, have been on a genuine journey around their Indigenous heritage and their commitment to reconciliation. The data on that is actually encourageing — the AFL’s broader Reconciliation Action Plan and club-level programs have produced some meaningful structural change over the past decade.

But reconciliation and respect for women aren’t separate conversations. They sit alongside each other. You can’t champion one form of dignity and look away from another. St Kilda will need to think carefully about how they handle Winmar’s public legacy now, and I’d hope they do it in a way that doesn’t pretend Friday didn’t happen.

What the Courts Are For

I want to be clear — and this matters — that everything I’m writing here is based on what the magistrate found after hearing all the evidence. The court process exists for exactly this reason. A woman made a complaint, a case was heard, and a magistrate who assessed witness credibility up close found she was telling the truth and found Winmar guilty on three charges.

That’s how it’s supposed to work. And it’s worth saying out loud: the fact that the process ran its course, that the woman was believed, that the verdict was delivered — that matters. Because for a long time in this country, women in these situations weren’t believed. The data on conviction rates in assault matters has historically been pretty grim. When the system works, we should acknowledge it.

Footy Culture and Accountability

This isn’t the first time we’ve had to confront the gap between a player’s on-field legacy and their off-field conduct, and it won’t be the last. The AFL has made genuine, if sometimes painfully slow, progress on issues of family violence and respect for women. The AFL’s own programs in this space have reached hundreds of thousands of people, and the messaging from clubs has shifted measurably over the past decade.

But messaging isn’t culture. Culture is what happens when nobody’s watching, when the cameras aren’t on, when the hero moment is long in the past and a 60-year-old man is in a room with a woman he allegedly decided didn’t deserve his respect. That’s where the real test is.

Footy can honour what Winmar did in 1993 — it absolutely should — while also being clear that what the court found in 2025 is unacceptable. The two positions aren’t in conflict. In fact, holding them together is the more honest and ultimately more respectful thing to do, both for his real legacy and for the woman at the centre of this case.

Where Do We Go From Here?

On the numbers, the AFL’s popularity continues to grow — 8.9 million attendances last home-and-away season, broadcast deals that reach every corner of the country. The game has enormous reach, and with that comes genuine cultural responsibility. Moments like this are a test of whether the sport and its media take that responsibility seriously or retreat into nostalgia when it gets uncomfortable.

I don’t think we should tear down the 1993 photograph or pretend it didn’t mean something transformative. But I also think the woman who walked into a courtroom and was found to be telling the truth deserves more than to have her experience quietly buried under the weight of someone else’s icon status.

Footy’s always been about more than just the game — ask anyone who’s ever stood on a hill at a suburban ground in the freezing cold because they love it that much. It’s about community, identity, history. And sometimes, it’s about being willing to look at that history clearly, even when clarity is uncomfortable.

Winmar the footballer gave us a moment of extraordinary courage. The court found that Winmar the person did something that caused a woman serious harm. Both of those things are true. The game — and all of us who love it — have to be big enough to hold both without flinching.