Geelong Football Club is expected to face a substantial financial penalty over its handling of the agreement that allowed premiership defender Jake Kolodjashnij to continue playing in 2024 following an independent concussion panel's findings — but the consequences of the case are set to reverberate well beyond whatever fine the AFL hands down.
Two specific failures have been identified in how the club managed the process. First, the agreement reached between Kolodjashnij, his family, his experienced insurance adviser and the club was never lodged with the AFL or the AFL Players' Association — something that is now broadly acknowledged as a clear requirement, even if it was not treated as such at the time. Second, the document itself went too far, containing what AFL chairman and then-Cats president Craig Drummond described in a public statement as "a waiver" — or, on more generous readings, an acknowledgment of risk by the player.
That second element is widely regarded as unnecessary and, more critically, potentially unenforceable. You cannot waive occupational health and safety rights, and the inclusion of such a clause added legal and ethical complexity to an already fraught situation.
Why Geelong should expect to be penalised
The rules governing player contracts exist within the collective bargaining agreement for good reason, and penalties for breaching those rules — whether through deliberate misconduct or procedural carelessness — are expected to be applied consistently. The Cats are unlikely to receive special treatment, and nor should they. The AFL's record on applying sanctions uniformly across clubs has been scrutinised before, and Geelong's period of post-2022 exceptionalism has left little goodwill in reserve.
There is also an acknowledgment that the AFL's own tendency to obstruct media scrutiny and deflect questions on sensitive issues has eroded public trust, making it harder for the game's administrators to be taken at face value when they do speak. That climate of suspicion only intensifies the scrutiny on this case.
The Kolodjashnij situation was never straightforward
Whatever the procedural failures, the motivations of both the player and the club are considerably less clear-cut than the process failings suggest. Kolodjashnij wanted to continue his career after the concussion panel delivered its findings — a deeply human and understandable position. But the club's response was never as simple as saying yes or no.
What followed was a two-month process involving club doctors, insurers, Kolodjashnij's representatives and his family — a family with particularly acute awareness of the issue, given his brother Kade had already retired from football due to concussion. Achieving a level of informed consent that satisfied all parties required substantial documentation, and it was out of that process that the problematic agreement emerged.
The implications of concussion in elite sport have created what can only be described as a medico-legal-insurance minefield that very few players, managers or supporters fully understand — and that even fewer are equipped to navigate. Personal insurance for players has become increasingly difficult to obtain. Premiums for club doctors and the clubs themselves are rising. The question of who carries liability in the event of long-term harm is deeply unresolved.
Doctors, insurers and the game itself are all under pressure
AFLPA chief executive James Gallagher addressed the broader challenge directly, noting that the game faces a genuine concussion crisis and that the safety network for players needs to be robust enough to retain the best medical professionals — people who, he suggested, currently feel exposed by the liability risks the issue creates.
"There is a concussion challenge in the game and the players are at risk and the game needs to have a safety network for them and we need to ensure we keep the best medical people in the game as well," Gallagher said. "They probably at this point unfortunately feel a bit of exposure as well."
Reports indicate that doctors and insurers are increasingly wary of their involvement with the game, with some understood to be considering withdrawing from it altogether due to the risks that player head injuries expose them to. That trajectory — if it continues — poses an existential threat to the professional standards of care that elite footballers depend on.
What happens next matters more than the fine
The financial penalty Geelong receives will draw significant attention and will serve as a marker for how the AFL enforces its own rules. But the more consequential questions raised by the Kolodjashnij case concern the entire framework within which players, clubs, doctors and insurers are trying to make life-altering decisions about head trauma and playing careers.
Those questions — moral, ethical, legal and medical — have not yet been aired with anything like the thoroughness they demand. The AFL, the players' association, clubs and the medical community will need to do far more than issue statements and hand out fines if the sport is to find a workable, fair and sustainable path through what is one of the most serious challenges it has faced.
For now, Geelong will pay the price for what went wrong procedurally. But the game itself is only beginning to reckon with the much larger problem the Kolodjashnij case has placed in sharp relief.
