Australia have had a very successful Olympics thus far - but now the Australian Olympic Committee is investigating their men's rugby sevens and football teams after allegations came to light that both behaved "unacceptably" on flights home from Tokyo 2020.
Both teams failed to bring medals home from the Olympics, with the sevens team finishing seventh and the football team being knocked out decisively in the first round.
Tokyo 2020 Olympics journey is over unfortunately earlier than expected as we were chasing a medal but it wasn’t meant to be! I am excited about what the future holds for Australian football! Thank you to all Aussies for the incredible support 💛💚 #tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/xQ9JcoMKta
— Mitchell Duke (@mitchduke8) July 29, 2021
Team Australia misbehaved on flight home from Olympics
Since their arrival home, though, the AOC have been made aware of supposed bad behaviour from both squads on their flight home.
AOC chief executive Matt Carroll released a statement about the allegations, saying that the behaviour was "unacceptable".
While there has been no formal complaint from the airline, unacceptable behaviour was brought to our attention and I directly raised the issue with our member sports CEOs.
It’s extremely disappointing but both rugby and football have told me that such behaviour is certainly not acceptable within their sports and have sincerely apologised to the Australian Olympic Team. The CEOs have undertaken to take the appropriate action and report back to us.
There's one slight issue for the general sporting public - it's still unclear what exactly happened on the flight. No formal complaint has been made in the aftermath of last Friday's flight from Tokyo to Sydney, but multiple reports of "incidents" brought the issue to light for Team Australia.
Both Rugby Australia and Football Australia (the governing bodies for the sports down under) acknowledged the incident in statements, saying that internal investigations are underway.
These aren't the only allegations of bad conduct hanging over Team Australia from Tokyo. Earlier this week, they acknowledged that Australian team members had damaged beds and walls in their accommodation, but said they would not discipline the athletes in question.
The two life-sized Team Australia mascots also went missing in the Olympic Village, but have now been returned after showing up in the German section of the Village.
It's been a strange Olympics for Team Australia, and these latest rumours only add to that. Nonetheless, they sit happily in fourth place on the medal table on 14 golds, with the chance to add to that in the closing days in Tokyo.
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