He broke club standards. Then won the club’s highest award.
Isaac Heeney has not been charged in relation to the separate police investigation into an alleged sexual assault.
But he was suspended by the Sydney Swans for breaching the club’s standards.
And now, despite that suspension, he has been named the Swans’ best and fairest, winning the Bob Skilton Medal for a third consecutive year.
That creates an uncomfortable question.
Can someone be held accountable for their conduct and still be celebrated as the club’s most valuable player?
The Swans have made the distinction clear. The award recognises Heeney’s performance on the field, while the suspension related to his conduct off the field. The club has said retrospectively removing his votes would compromise the integrity of the voting process.
And legally, the distinction matters.
No charges have been laid. An allegation is not a conviction.
But there is another conversation here that isn’t about guilt.
It’s about culture.
Because organisations don’t only communicate their values through the rules they enforce.
They communicate them through the people they celebrate.
You can believe in the presumption of innocence while also asking whether professional consequences for conduct should extend beyond a suspension.
You can acknowledge someone’s talent without believing talent should make someone immune from scrutiny.
And you can separate the question of “Did he commit a crime?” from the question of “What behaviour does this organisation want to reward and publicly celebrate?”
Those are different questions.
Sports culture has a long history of making extraordinary athletes into heroes, sometimes to the point where their behaviour off the field becomes secondary to what they can produce on it.
And that’s where this becomes bigger than one player.
Because when we hand someone a trophy and call them our Most Valuable Player, we’re not only recognising statistics.
We’re telling everyone watching what we value.
Maybe that’s the uncomfortable part.
Not whether Isaac Heeney is a talented footballer.
Clearly, he is.
But whether being valuable to a team should ever be measured only by what someone does when the ball is in their hands.
**Because culture isn’t only built by who gets punished.
It’s also built by who gets celebrated.**
What exactly are we teaching the next generation about what makes someone a hero?
Apparently, being valuable enough on the field can make the conversation about what happens off it a lot quieter.
Isaac Heeney has not been charged in the separate police investigation, and that distinction matters. But he was suspended by the Sydney Swans for breaching club standards, before going on to win the Bob Skilton Medal as the club’s most valuable player.
You can believe in due process and the presumption of innocence while still asking uncomfortable questions about what organisations choose to celebrate.
Culture isn’t only shaped by the rules we write or the punishments we hand out. It’s shaped by who we put on pedestals, who we protect, whose discomfort we prioritise, and whose voices get switched off.
When the comments are turned off, the question becomes even harder to ignore…
The most uncomfortable thing about this award isn’t who won it, but what it says about what sports culture and the @sydneyswans values 🤢
