The Geelong Cats have been identified as the AFL club behind a secret deal that required a player with a history of concussions to take on legal responsibility for any future on-field brain injury — protecting the club from liability.

The Herald Sun first reported the arrangement on Thursday morning without naming the club. The Guardian subsequently named Geelong on 6 August 2026.

The deal was struck two years ago and cleared by the club's board. At the time, Geelong's chair was Craig Drummond, who has since been appointed chair of the AFL Commission — the governing body that oversees the league.

CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head knocks. The Herald Sun described the arrangement as "the most dangerous precedent in football" and accused the club of "drafting secret contracts to shift CTE liability onto players" (Herald Sun).

AFL Players' Association chief executive James Gallagher said the reported deal could breach both competition rules and Australian law. Clubs, Gallagher said, cannot contract out of their obligations under the collective bargaining agreement or workplace health and safety laws (The Guardian).

The AFLPA was in talks with the AFL over the matter following the News Corp report (ABC News).

Former West Coast premiership coach Adam Simpson told SEN the report shocked him.

The revelation lands against a backdrop of mounting legal and medical pressure on the AFL over head injuries. A class action led by former Geelong player Max Rooke — involving more than 100 former players — has been working through Victorian courts for over two years and is expected to go to trial next year.

The concussion issue has touched the game at every level. Rowena Barnes, wife of former AFL player John Barnes, went public in 2018 about the "nightmare" of her husband's declining health, which she attributed to on-field concussions. At the time, most former players involved in early legal action said they simply wanted the AFL to acknowledge a link between concussion and long-term brain damage.

The league has taken steps in response to the broader crisis. This season, independent doctors at matches were given greater powers to pull concussed players from the field — a responsibility that previously sat with club doctors, who faced an inherent conflict of interest. A coronial inquest into the 2023 death of Shane Tuck recommended limiting contact training sessions, and that change is set to be applied for the first time in the coming AFL pre-season.

An AFL brain injury campaigner has called for players with at least three concussions to be barred from signing large contracts.

What gives this story its edge is the clash between a club protecting itself and the duty of care it owes the people who play for it. A contract that shifts brain-injury liability onto a player — one already vulnerable because of repeated concussions — sits uncomfortably alongside everything the AFL has said and done about head injuries in recent years.

The AFL and Geelong had not publicly responded to the specific allegations at the time of reporting.