Now that the Australian Football League (AFL) has evolved into a bigbusiness
enterprise, it is perhaps an opportune time to ask whether WorkCover
or other health and safety related messages reach football practitioners. In other
words, in a dangerous contact sport like football, do industrial health and safety
messages fall on deaf ears? While the question lends itself to an empirical study
by sport psychologists or sociologists, this paper explores a number of discourses
operating in Australian football that might lead one to answer this question in
the affirmative. The paper will then examine how AFL player professionalism
can be redescribed to promote a greater measure of self-regulation of workplace
health and safety.