In 2021, the coach of the Perth-based West Coast Eagles Australian rules football team said recruits who attended public schools and came from single-parent families are too costly to manage off-field and the club might be better off concentrating on private school boys from stable families.
His comments came a year after a Western Australian parliamentary inquiry found elite private schools had provided 30 to 40% of the state’s AFL draftees in the previous three years, even though they accounted for only seven of the state’s 300 secondary schools.
