Barry Cable’s Hall of Fame removal ’25 years too late’

Steve Larkin and Anna Harrington | June 27, 2023

The AFL is defending its handling of disgraced Australian rules identity Barry Cable, after his victim said the league’s decision to revoke his Hall of Fame status came 25 years too late.

Cable was on Tuesday removed from the sport’s Hall of Fame membership and stripped of his Australian football legend status after a judge found he sexually abused a Perth girl.

His former club North Melbourne has also removed Cable from its Hall of Fame.

A judge presiding over a District Court of Western Australia civil trial recently found Cable repeatedly sexually abused a Perth girl at the height of his playing career.

Judge Mark Herron said there was compelling evidence Cable also violated other children.

The Perth woman, identified as ‘ZYX’, released a statement via her lawyers describing the AFL’s decision as “nearly a quarter of a century late”.

“If the WA Director of Public Prosecutions had charged Cable on the police evidence presented in 1999, he would not have enjoyed another 25 years of fame and respect,” she said.

“For decades I and the other women he preyed upon as children have had to deal with the damage and trauma he caused.

“Meanwhile he has been honoured and promoted throughout sport and the wider community.

“He was never a legend. He was a paedophile and a liar who bullied and abused children.”

AFL chairman Richard Goyder said Judge Herron’s finding was “incredibly serious and distressing”.

But Goyder and AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said they couldn’t have acted any faster.

“You’ve got to wait for a judgment to be handed down and then there needs to be a level of natural process … the (AFL) commission has been decisive, strong and efficient,” McLachlan told reporters.

“The process has actually been tight and fast, relatively, but respected process and natural justice.”

Goyder dismissed suggestions the AFL Commission could have called an emergency meeting after June’s civil trial verdict.

The commission recently introduced rules allowing for the removal of any person for conduct which brought the game into disrepute.

Goyder said the AFL had written to Cable to ask him why he shouldn’t be removed, and that the former player had responded.

North Melbourne’s announcement followed that of the AFL, with club president Sonja Hood calling the civil trial findings “incredibly disturbing”.

After the verdict, Western Australia’s Institute of Sport revoked Cable’s Hall of Champions honours and the WA Football Commission removed his standing in the state football Hall of Fame, as well as his Legend status and life membership.

Cable, a North Melbourne (VFL), Perth and East Perth (both WAFL) premiership player, was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 1996 and upgraded to official Legend status in 2012.

At the civil trial, Cable’s victim was awarded $818,700 after Judge Herron found Cable abused her over five years from 1968, starting from when she was aged 12.

Judge Herron found Cable groomed his victim, who used to babysit his infant son, with sexualised conversations and unwanted touching before escalating to almost-weekly sexual assaults.

He assaulted the girl at a public swimming pool, the Perth Football Club change rooms and at his home while her younger sister slept nearby.

On multiple occasions, Cable threatened to sexually abuse the younger sister if his victim did not comply with his demands, Judge Herron found.

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