It's not too often that the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award is given to an outsider but last month, Anna Krien's 'Night Games' was the unexpected winner of this prestigious literary prize.

 

Krien's book centres on the rape trial of an Australian rules footballer who she called 'Justin Dyer'. The amateur Aussie Rules player is accused of raping a young woman in a South Melbourne alley in the aftermath of the 2010 AFL Grand Final.

Krien covered the trial as a journalist despite the fact she had no background in sport. She therefore came to the trial with an impartiality that only one outwith the sporting bubble can ever hope to have.

While the book stems from one particular trial, it goes into far more depth than this, exploring the wider issue of sexism in sport, of jock culture and of the attitudes of fans as well as of those in authority such as the police towards these young men who are lauded for nothing more than their sporting prowess.

Krien looks at the issues of sex, consent and power within the sporting context and she has talked about the criticism she received in some quarters for writing a book about football despite having no prior understanding of football. That argument goes to highlight what a sacred position sport, especially the dominant sport in a country, is afforded by many.

Dyer's case is complicated and opens one's eyes to much more than this specific allegation of rape. In writing about this case, Krien analyses the attitudes of young footballers towards women and sex in relation to their being immersed in their sport and in the team culture. Krien's work may have been done in Australia, centring on Aussie Rules football, but it could just as easily apply to the top football teams in Britain.

"The crux of the problem," she writes, "not just with Aussie Rules and rugby league, but also with American football and European soccer, is not the game per se, but the macho culture of humiliation that tends to shadow and control it."

Krien writes about the team mentality which, to my mind, is a pack mentality that takes over these young men's brains. Behaviour which is considered wholly unacceptable in the 'normal world' becomes permitted, even expected, inside the framework of the team.

Time after time, the same old excuses are trotted out in an attempt to justify misdemeanours that range from derogatory to gut-churning, and which are commonly rationalised as banter. In the 'normal world', slipping a Rohypnol into the drink of another player's long-term girlfriend, or a player defecating into the shoe of a girl he has just had sex with, while another of his teammates is having sex with her, are not considered acceptable behaviour.

In the 'normal world', this would not, and is not, tolerated. But Aussie rules football, or in Britain's case, football, seems to inhabit a parallel universe. Young men, often men who would not have achieved any level of fame or fortune in any other walk of life, are bestowed with obscene amounts of money, as well as having girls throwing themselves at their feet.

Krien also describes how police officers almost enable footballers to behave as they please, so excited are they to be invited into the inner sanctum. Similarly, male sports journalists are often so grateful to be invited into the changing rooms with the team that a player's misogyny is not merely tolerated, it is endorsed.

It is little wonder then that the judgment of these players becomes flawed. They begin to believe that they live in an almost lawless, unregulated bubble and feel that they are untouchable. When it comes to their attitudes and behaviour towards women, it is less of a case of sexual gratification and more an attempt to win approval from the team.

Krien acknowledges that the so-called night games are seen as "team-bonding or jokes". "Their sense of humour is out of whack," she writes. "They don't have their feet on the ground anymore. These boys aren't given the opportunity to have a proper relationship with women. They don't experience friendship and equality in the same way as most teenagers. It's sad. They lose perspective. There's no empathy with women."

Many of these footballers are awarded a level of adulation that they are never taught how to cope with. Many of them are still, in a variety of ways, immature and irresponsible and are thrown into a world which is foreign to almost all others.

Krien then asks the difficult and unedifying question of "what constitutes rape?" This question has particular resonance when considering the Ched Evans case that has caused such a furore in English football. Some of these men who are accused of rape firmly believe that the girl consented. Should they then be convicted of rape?

In the end, Dyer was not charged. But Krien has written such a thought-provoking book that every aspiring male footballer should be made to read it as part of their apprenticeship.