Not everyone loves the roar of the crowd
You've seen the image before, even if you couldn't name it. The siren sounds, the crowd roars, and moments later a player runs through a banner with their toddler. Or they jog to the sideline, where a small child waits, sometimes beaming, sometimes clinging to a leg, sometimes visibly crying, overwhelmed by the noise, the lights, and the crush of adults around them. It's become a familiar ritual across our biggest, most televised sporting codes; parents who play at the elite, national level bringing their children onto the ground, the adult workplace.
On the surface, it looks like tenderness. A tired, sweaty athlete scooping up their small child in front of thousands of fans and a television audience of millions. What could be more human, more relatable? But when you look a little closer, and a little more often, a harder question starts to form. Why is a toddler on a floodlit ground at 9:30pm, disoriented by strobing lights and roaring crowds, being paraded past camera crews? And why does no one seem to be asking whether that's good for the child?
I ask this not as someone who has spent a lifetime around sport; as a barracker, a supporter, a family member cheering from the sidelines across cricket, AFL, soccer, swimming, touch football, tennis, and roller hockey. In my family, sport is our common language, a way of connecting and spending time together. I believe deeply in what sporting clubs can offer - belonging, community, resilience, friendships that last a lifetime. But that belief is exactly why I think we need to look honestly at moments like these, because they're a small, visible symptom of a much bigger problem.
A photo opportunity, or a child's wellbeing?
These post-match moments aren't accidents. They're built into broadcast schedules and club traditions, often because they're heartwarming, marketable, and good for a code's image. But a child who is overtired, overstimulated, and suddenly surrounded by strangers, noise, and cameras is not having a "moment", they may be having a genuinely distressing experience, on national television.
If a child were crying and clearly uncomfortable in almost any other public, adult-dominated environment, we'd expect somebody to intervene. It is unusual to bring your child into your workplace and our children are not broadcast on workplace social media posts so why is it normalised, even applauded, in the sporting arena? The gap between what we'd tolerate elsewhere and what we wave through in sport is worth sitting with.
The bigger picture: policies on paper, gaps on the ground
This is where the small moment connects to the larger one. Sporting organisations, whether grassroots or televised nationally, carry a responsibility which goes well beyond performance, fitness, and list management. They carry a values-based, ethical responsibility to keep every child who comes into contact with their sport genuinely safe.
Most big codes can point to an integrity team, a short online training module, and a working-with-children check as their safeguarding strategy. What's much harder to find is a genuine culture which notices harm before it escalates, an environment which is child safe and a workforce equipped to act on what they see. A reporting form and a 16-minute e-learning course doesn’t equip a volunteer to respond to a child who is experiencing harm, or give them the confidence to say, "this isn’t ok, let’s do something about it."
The Queensland Rugby League is one organisation which has taken this seriously, investing in what safeguarding actually means for their sport and putting the right people in the right roles. Their experience shows that a safeguarding culture doesn't arrive through a policy document. It's built slowly, by giving volunteers - the people who run water, umpire games, wash jerseys, and drive kids to matches - real tools, knowledge, and the confidence to act.
When distress becomes a pattern, not a photo
The child on ground is a mild example, but the same failure of attention shows up in far more serious ways. We've all seen the distressing images of children visibly frightened on huge sporting grounds. We've read the reports of young women assaulted within clubs while committees looked away. We've heard about coaches humiliating children in front of teammates, building a culture of shame rather than resilience.
Being competitive should never come at the cost of a child's emotional security. An organisation that can't tell the difference between building toughness and eroding a child's sense of safety has a cultural problem, not just a compliance gap.
What needs to change
Governments have circled this issue for years with mixed results. But real change won't come from another policy binder. It will come from sporting organisations deciding, deliberately, that children should never be scared, upset, or distressed in the environments their sport creates whether on the field, in the change rooms, or in the moments broadcast to the nation after full-time. It will come from broadcasters putting the child first, and not the visual.
That starts with something as small as asking whether a crying toddler belongs on a football ground at all. And it continues with something much bigger: investing properly in organisational safeguarding culture, so volunteers and staff who are actually positioned to notice when a child isn't okay have the standing to do something about it.
