Articles
- Keeping children and young people with disability safe, opens in a new tab, Play by the Rules, (13 March 2026). Play by the Rules is pleased to share three videos developed by the National Office for Child Safety (the National Office) about safety for children and young people with disability which support clubs to create and maintain child safe sporting environments.
- Female athletes found to fear 'nothing is going to happen' when speaking out on gender-based violence, opens in a new tab, Amanda Shalala, ABC, (26 February 2026). Kareema Wakim was in her mid-teens when she made her first national senior team for moguls skiing, earning an overseas trip.
- Disability, Safety & Sport, opens in a new tab, Stephanie Dixon, Danielle Peers, Elisabeth Walker-Young, et al., SIRC, (18 February 2026). There is a lot of focus on safe(r) sport recently and, for the most part, suggested solutions have tended to be “one size fits all.” But there are many kinds of sporting harms disabled people face that are different from non-disabled athletes. This brief article (and our full report) tries to address the massive gap in research and practice related to safety concerns for disabled people in sport.
- Elite sportswomen have shared their stories, and these are the hard truths, opens in a new tab, Amanda Shalala, ABC, (12 January 2026). Many athletes in women's sport have told us that they are underpaid, discriminated against, and mistreated in a landmark study conducted by ABC Sport. Athletes were asked for their views on a range of topics including earnings, discrimination, health and wellbeing, resourcing and support, with responses from 152 current and recently retired athletes across 47 sports, including multi-sport athletes. Key findings included:
- A majority of athletes have witnessed and/or experienced racism, sexual harassment or violence, and discrimination based on their gender, sexuality, or disability
- Many athletes are dealing with negative feelings around their body image, and nearly half have experienced an eating disorder/disordered eating
- 32 per cent have been trolled on social media, and 87 per cent have seen other athletes abused online
- ABC Elite Athletes in Australian Women's Sport Survey: Results summary, opens in a new tab, ABC, (12 January 2026). ABC Sport has released the results of its Elite Athletes in Australian Women's Sport Survey, in partnership with Deakin University. It is based on the BBC's Elite British Sportswomen's Study. Here is a summary of the findings, based on 152 responses from elite athletes spanning 47 sports (including some participating in multiple sports).
- Gymnastics Australia breached human rights of girl with broken back, report finds, opens in a new tab, David Mark, ABC, (3 September 2025). A report by an international ethics body has found that Gymnastics Australia (GA) breached the human rights of a 12-year-old girl who broke her back while training in excruciating pain.
- RLPA survey finds NRLW players experience twice as much abuse as NRL counterparts, opens in a new tab, David Mark, ABC, (17 December 2024). A survey has shown NRLW players receive twice as much online abuse as their male counterparts in the NRL and two in three do not report incidents.
- World Athletics publishes findings of study into online abuse of athletes covering Paris Olympic Games, opens in a new tab, (1 November 2024). Fourth major study into online abuse raises concerns over continued levels of abuse of a racist or sexual nature. Key findings: Racism and sexualised abuse continue to be used to target athletes, making up more than 48% of the results; 809 total posts were verified as abusive, with 128 posts and comments (16%) escalated to the relevant platform for additional action; 1,917 athletes with at least one active account were monitored for online abuse during the Paris Games across four social media platforms – 12 times the size sampled during the Tokyo Olympics.
- Abuse in Indian Wrestling Exposes Need for Global Hotline, opens in a new tab, Sport & Rights Alliance, (23 July 2024). The report, “We Were Only Demanding Justice”: Sexual Abuse in Indian Wrestling Federation, details the pattern of sexual harassment and violence suffered by athletes during the 12-year tenure of then-President of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), Brij Bhushan Singh, who was also a Parliament member with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the time.
- Football’s referee crisis: we asked thousands of refs about the abuse and violence that’s driving them out of the game, opens in a new tab, Tom Webb, Harjit Sekhon, The Conversation, (13 June 2024). One of the two English referees at this year’s Euros, Michael Oliver, was subjected to particularly shocking abuse, including death threats, after awarding a last-minute penalty in a Champions League quarter-final in April 2018. And it wasn’t only him: Oliver’s wife Lucy, also a referee, was sent abusive text messages after her mobile phone number was posted on social media.
- “I feel (un)safe when…”: What athletes have to say about high performance culture, opens in a new tab, Eric MacIntosh, Shannon Kerwin, Alison Doherty, SIRCuit, (25 July 2022). In this article, researchers present their findings about Canadian high performance athletes’ perspectives on safe and unsafe sport environments, as well as recommendations for changes. Athletes identified coach behaviour, teammate or fellow athlete behaviour, lack of resources and an inattentive sport system as key factors contributing to unsafe sporting environments. Implementing initiatives to target these issues can support the shift to a safer sport environment (for example, requiring coaches to undertake self-awareness and self-regulation training that promote safe coach behaviour).
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