Within 12 hours of a woman reporting sexual assault allegations involving Sydney Swans players to police, CEO Matthew Pavlich held a press conference.
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He referred to an "alleged incident" and expressed disappointment that the players had "found themselves in this situation".
Sports journalists and commentators quickly began analysing what it meant for the Swans' grand final prospects.
Amidst a national crisis of violence against women, victim-survivors, advocates and ex-players have called out the club's response and media's framing of the issue.
"This problem didn't arise overnight," says activist Tarang Chawla.Â
"This is decades in the making and it's a moment, a tipping point, for Australian sporting culture."
Mr Chawla has been calling for a male cultural shift to end gender-based violence since his 23-year-old sister Niki was murdered by her husband in 2015.
As an ambassador for the Carlton Respects program, he has had "very frank conversations" with players at that club about gender equality.
"It's such an ongoing issue in Australian sport, particularly within football, because we refuse to name these things and we refuse to then address them at the scale that's required," he says.
"It's just showing how secondary women and girls are in a society that will put a man who can kick a ball well ahead of the safety of women and girls."
He says it's a real opportunity for Australia to reckon with "a culture of men's entitlement that allows men to think they have access to women's bodies, that boundaries are a suggestion rather than a violation of someone else's human rights".
Language is one of the main drivers of gender-based violence and failure to centre an alleged victim and denounce all male violence has revealed a blind spot, Mr Chawla says.
"This is so much broader than the circumstances of what did or did not happen at the Pullman Hotel in East Melbourne," he said.
"It highlighted perhaps a blind spot in how to address these types of issues.
"That's probably why so many women and girls, primarily, talked to anyone who listened - they went online, they asked for more from the media, because they're so fed up with having to talk about this."
Former AFLW player Kate McCarthy was one of the first associated with the league to call out issues with the language used this week.
"Language matters too. Players don't simply 'find themselves in situations'. Adults have agency and make choices," she said on Instagram.
"That AFL says it wants women and girls to feel that football belongs to them. That has to mean more than having an AFLW competition or getting women through the gates.
"It means examining the culture around men in football, how women are spoken about and treated, and how our industry responds when serious allegations involving women arise.
"When women are potentially harmed, why are we so quick to focus on what it means for the men on the football field?"
Human rights lawyer Prabha Nandagopal founded Elevate Consulting Partners to help workplaces eliminate sexual harassment and discrimination.
She says Pavlich's first statement to media would have been approved by multiple people before he delivered it, including crisis PR.
But she questions whether trauma-informed specialists were brought into the discussion.
"Nothing in a statement like that is accidental," Ms Nandagopal says.
"But what came out the other end, I felt minimised an extremely serious allegation of sexual assault and didn't share even one line of concern for the woman (allegedly) at the heart of it."
She acknowledges statements from the AFL and Swans in the days since have improved but reiterates that the initial response was "incredibly important".
"Particularly when you look at the current climate; one in five Australian women has experienced sexual violence since the age of 15," Ms Nandagopal says.
"This is truly a national crisis and sporting clubs hold enormous power and cultural influence, which means leaders, including AFL leaders, have a responsibility to actively stand against violence towards women."
Missing from the Swans' initial response was exactly that there was no acknowledgement of the scale of violence against women, she says.
Every business including sporting clubs are required to take proactive measures to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace under the Sex Discrimination Act.
"All these leaders need to have had training on sexual harassment prevention and what their roles and responsibilities are," she says.
"They need to understand what a trauma-informed response to a report of sexual violence looks like. They need to be able to implement that.
"If they haven't had that training, they're not meeting their requirements under federal discrimination law."
For Mr Chawla, a club like Sydney not using trauma-informed specialists to help communicate is "a glaring missed opportunity".
"They are elite athletes who have psychologists, dietitians, nutritionists, personal trainers, every support available to them in order to extract every ounce of athletic performance from them on the field," he says.
"But none of that is a substitute for good character off the field.
"There is a world in which you can demonstrate accountability while respecting a legal process and having a trauma-informed approach for the safety of women and girls."
Prevention organisation Our Watch has helped the AFL educate players on gender inequality, violence against women and sport's role in that.
"Prevention requires more than statements, awareness campaigns or one-off education," says chief executive Patty Kinnersly.
"Organisations must embed equality and respect across club cultures, policies, decision-making, reporting and support systems, and everyday behaviour."
Mr Chawla believes more rigorous player and staff education is needed, but so is shifting the culture of the institutions to make them more accountable.
Fathers trying to educate their sons on gender equality and respect have told him this week they are questioning whether they want them to play AFL.
The sons go into a hyper-masculine environment and are hearing messages about entitlement, he says.
"The father are then saying: 'I'm worried he's going to pick that stuff up'.
"These are the kinds of flow-on effects that we're going to start seeing and it'll be to the detriment of the sport," Mr Chawla warns.
Five Swans players have been banned for the rest of the season for breaching club standards and police are separately investigating the sexual assault allegations.
No criminal charges have been laid.
The Sydney Swans and AFL have been contacted by AAP for responses.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
Lifeline 13 11 14
Men's Referral Service 1300 766 491