A concussion waiver signed by Geelong defender Jake Kolodjashnij has reignited a debate that stretches well beyond one player, one club or one code: how much risk should an athlete be allowed to accept, and does signing a form really settle the question of long-term brain damage?
The issue lands in regional Victoria as much as it does at AFL headquarters. From the Goulburn Valley Football League to junior netball and rugby league clubs across the state’s north, community sport administrators are watching the AFL’s handling of concussion closely, because whatever standard elite sport sets tends to filter down to the local oval.
What happened with the Kolodjashnij waiver #
According to reporting on the matter, Kolodjashnij was permitted to return to play after signing a document acknowledging the risks associated with continuing his career despite a history of concussions. The AFL has not disputed that such waivers exist as part of its concussion protocols, though the league has faced repeated questions about how they are used and what a player is actually agreeing to when they sign one.
VCN has not been provided with the waiver itself, and we make no claim about its precise wording or legal effect. What is clear from the public conversation it has triggered is that “informed consent” is being asked to do a lot of heavy lifting in a space where the science is still evolving and the stakes — permanent neurological damage — are about as high as they get in sport.
The medical picture: what long careers can do to the brain #
Research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and repeated head trauma has expanded significantly over the past decade, including postmortem studies of former Australian rules and rugby league players. Findings published by researchers at the Australian Sports Brain Bank have identified CTE in the brains of deceased former professional footballers, though researchers caution that diagnosis currently can only be confirmed after death and that the relationship between concussion history and later-life symptoms is complex and not yet fully mapped.
What the research broadly agrees on is this: repeated head knocks over a long career carry cumulative risk. A single concussion is one event; a fifteen-year career in a contact sport is an accumulation of exposures, some of which may never be reported, diagnosed or treated at the time they happen. That accumulation is where the real uncertainty — and the real danger — sits.
Can you really “consent” to a risk that isn’t fully known? #
This is the crux of the ethical debate playing out in sports medicine and legal circles. Informed consent, as a concept, assumes the person signing understands the risk they are accepting. But if researchers themselves cannot yet say with precision how many concussions, or what kind of head trauma, tips a player from manageable risk into a CTE diagnosis decades later, it is difficult to see how a playing group — however well advised — can be said to have full information.
There is also the question of power imbalance. A player facing delisting, financial pressure or the end of a professional career is not negotiating from the same position as a club doctor or football department. Sports lawyers and player advocates have previously raised concerns, in submissions and public commentary, about whether athletes under contract pressure can meaningfully weigh up long-term brain health against the immediate cost of stepping away from the game.
None of this amounts to an allegation that any club or code has acted unlawfully. It is a live policy and ethical debate, not a legal finding, and VCN is not suggesting otherwise.
Why this matters beyond the AFL #
For readers outside metropolitan Melbourne, the AFL’s concussion protocols matter for a very practical reason: they set the template that community leagues, junior clubs and school sport programs across regional Victoria tend to follow. AFL Victoria’s own concussion guidelines, revised in recent seasons, already require longer stand-down periods for suspected concussion at community level than were once standard, and clubs from Shepparton to Wangaratta have had to adjust training and match-day protocols accordingly.
If elite sport is seen to be managing concussion risk through waivers signed under contractual pressure, community clubs — many run by volunteers with far less access to medical expertise — are left navigating the same grey area with even fewer resources. A parent signing a permission form for a fourteen-year-old to play representative football is arguably being asked to make the same kind of judgement call, with even less information at hand.
What oversight exists — and what doesn’t #
Concussion management in Australian sport currently sits across a patchwork of codes of conduct, league-specific protocols and general medical guidelines rather than a single binding legal standard. The AFL has its own concussion and head trauma guidelines, updated periodically in consultation with medical panels, but these are policy documents rather than legislation. There is no Victorian or Commonwealth law that specifically governs how a professional sporting club must manage an athlete’s return to play after head injury, beyond general workplace health and safety obligations that apply to any employer.
That regulatory gap is precisely why waivers have become contentious. In the absence of a clear external standard, clubs and leagues are effectively setting their own rules for how much disclosure a player needs before returning to a contact sport — and then asking the player to sign off on having received it.
Some player associations have called for independent, arms-length concussion assessment panels, separate from club medical staff, to remove any perception of conflict between a doctor’s duty of care to a player and a club’s interest in fielding its best team. Whether such a model is adopted, and by whom, remains an open question rather than a settled outcome.
Where the debate goes from here #
Nothing in the current controversy suggests wrongdoing by any individual named in connection with it, and VCN is not asserting that any waiver process breached medical or legal obligations. What the Kolodjashnij case has done is force a broader, overdue conversation: whether a signature on a form is an adequate substitute for genuinely independent medical oversight, especially when the person signing may be under significant career pressure and when the science of long-term brain injury is still catching up with the sport itself.
For regional Victorian communities where football, netball and rugby league are woven into weekend life, the outcome of that conversation will shape far more than one AFL club’s list management. It will shape the advice handed to a sixteen-year-old at Benalla, the return-to-play call made by a volunteer trainer at Cobram, and the choices a parent makes on behalf of a child who cannot yet make that call themselves.
Readers concerned about concussion or head injury in sport, or seeking support after a diagnosis affecting themselves or a family member, can contact Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 or Lifeline on 13 11 14 for confidential support. Advice on concussion protocols in community sport is available through AFL Victoria and relevant state sporting bodies.
