St George Illawarra forward Jack de Belin has defended the fact there were no female journalists present at a crucial interview opportunity last month.
De Belin spoke to the media for the first time in three years, after having rape charges against him dropped.
But days after that interview taking place and being broadcast around the country, Australian Rugby League Committee chairman Peter V’landys publicly issued the Dragons a “please explain”.
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V’landys questioned how the interview was organised, why only select journalists were invited to question de Belin, and why none of those journalists were female.
“I won’t go into the subject of it, but they should just have a standard policy to invite all journalists to media conferences and, in particular, they should encourage and support female journalists,” V’landys told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Anything to the contrary would be completely stupid.”
De Belin has done limited media interviews since then, and had not been asked about the V’landys comments until now.
9News reporter Emma Lawrence asked the Dragons player for his take on the controversy.
“To be honest I had no idea about that. That’s the club, they arranged for that (the interview) to happen,” de Belin said.
“I didn’t put any thought into it, but obviously hearing that, it would have been nice to have a female reporter, and get her perspective on things, ask a few questions.
“But that was out of my control. I can see why people might have been frustrated, or it didn’t look (good).
“But I had no control over that, and if there were 20 female reporters there I would have been happy to answer their questions.”
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