Help needed: a sports org are following up complaint I made.

[Oxytocindeficient]

I’ve made a complaint to a country’s sports organisation regarding several press statements they made after a player committed an assault on his partner. Said player offered new contract after assault and got off conviction because he was a professional sportsman. He’s one of many. I specifically complained about the language used. Not once did they express disappointment in the act, never mentioned domestic violence, never mentioned the victim. I’ll be speaking to the head of communications. I think I know what to focus on... I’m directly asking her why they haven’t mentioned or offered support to victim, why they haven’t made it clear they expect more from players or are disappointed, angry even. She’s Communications Manager so will be involved in policy regarding how coaches and managers speak about it. I would welcome any advice or relevant data you think I should mention. Has anyone had a complaint like this responded to? It’s not a UK sports body and I’m honestly surprised to be getting an international call as a response. I’m a little nervous and don’t want to miss important points. I went to see my MP about the Self ID issue and was a bit hopeless! I want to do a good job with this.
Examples of how they spoke on it:

• ‘ it’s a behavioural issue not a character trait
• you’ll wanna talk about the offfield stuff so I’ll just ‘ hit that on the head now’ ( the victim was hit on the head )
• a coach from a different team said player was ‘unlucky’ to miss out on a contract initially
• ‘ we looked into his eyes and saw genuine remorse’

Thanks in advance.

It's hard to say without knowing the case, players don't often have contracts with their country here, more with their clubs.

When you say he got off conviction, do you mean he got found not guilty or he just got a slap on the wrists?

He was found guilty, pleaded guilty and was fined. I wanted not to give too much away with this so I don’t identify myself. With this sport there is an organisation that represents and rules over all clubs. Players and coaches can be fined, suspended or banned from the sport in that country. The player was not a citizen, just resident. A conviction would have led to loss of sports contract and likely deportation.

That's very different to here.

I would be questioning why they have not had their own investigation and found him guilty of bringing the game into disrepute. Sounds like they have the power to do so where ever it is.

They did. He was suspended for one game. They don’t allow the public to make complaints about signings specifically. My specific complaint is about how the coaches and managers have been publicly speaking about him, his new contract and the case. It’s very familiar as media often do that too, like in rape cases where they post the athletes swim times or other similar things in an attempt to diminish the crimes.

I wondered where I might get data about reoffending rates amongst men found guilty of DV.

Reoffending has not been well studied.
Rates of men in therapy depend on the way it is reported; around 7% based on police reports but nearly 40% based on partner reports.
(It could be that after conviction, men put pressure on their partners not to report.)

Domestic violence treatment response and recidivism: A review and implications for the study of family violence
digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1084&context=psychfacpub

''Domestic abuse is often a hidden crime that is not reported to the police. Therefore, data held by the police can only provide a partial picture of the actual level of domestic abuse experienced. ''
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/domesticabuseinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2018

Colluding in covering up a crime is not behaviour that you'd expect from a national sporting body. It could be worth escalating to the international body.

userschmoozer thank you for that, very helpful. Yes, it’s a very typical pattern with this particular sport in NZ ( the country in question ) and I look forward to holding this person to account for their appalling attitude towards it.