Didaked : celebrity, privacy and player behaviour in the AFL

At the start of the 21st century elite male team sports assume a high profile presence in the commodified spaces of a globalised hyperreality. When games are sports entertainment businesses many elite performers are celebrities: they exist as brands whose every thought and action is commodified and consumed.
In these spaces the misbehaviours of a relatively small number of Australian Rules Football (AFL) players continue to make the news. A high profile recent incident involving Collingwood footballer Alan Didak is the subject of this paper. Given the levels of media attention devoted to such events we ask: Do AFL footballers have a right to privacy? We also question whether AFL players really understand what it means to be a sports celebrity.
The elevation of the sport star to the status of celebrity means that the idea that an elite performer has a private life and a public life that are separate is one that is problematic. Drawing on Foucault’s later work on the care of the self, our analysis will focus on a variety of processes which seek to develop and manage a professional identity for elite performers – and the risks that attach to these identities.