Last updated 30 April 2026
The rules of any sport may determine what is acceptable conduct for the purpose of that sport. Sporting rules, however, never displace society’s rules, particularly the criminal law. For example, a punch in the heat of a football game may result in injuries the law calls ’actual bodily harm’ or even ‘grievous bodily harm’ (e.g. loss of a body part/organ, serious disfigurement or injuries that, if left untreated, might cause permanent injury to health or endanger life).
Any application of force to another person, regardless of whether injury results, is potentially an assault (s 245 Criminal Code). However, consent of the victim plays a very important part in determining whether or not a criminal offence has been committed. Players consent to the normal occurrences that are to be expected when playing the game, even if these actions are breaches of the rules of the game. In a game of rugby league, players expect to be physically tackled, even where a defending player tackles an opponent from an offside position (i.e. in breach of the rules), this would not revoke the implied consent of the attacking player to be tackled, because this type of rule infringement is a regular occurrence in rugby league. By contrast, a rule infringement in the form of a punch to an opponent’s head, may be considered outside of a what a player has consented to.
Criminal liability could also extend to a coach, as an accessory to an assault, if it could be shown that the coach encouraged or instructed their player to illegally injure an opponent.
While consent negates what might otherwise constitute a common assault, there are levels of serious assault in which the applicability of the criminal law does not depend on the presence of lack of consent (s 246(2) Criminal Code). This can vary across jurisdictions but, for example in Queensland, a person cannot consent to grievous bodily harm (because an ‘assault’ is not an element of that offence, and consent is not otherwise mentioned in that offence (s 320 Criminal Code).
The fact that players rarely sue for injuries sustained on sporting fields (for a notable exception see McCracken v Melbourne Storm Rugby League Football Club & 2 Ors [2005] NSWSC 107) and that police rarely investigate assaults on sporting fields does not mean that some future criminal liability may not attach to actions that are within the rules of the sport but outside the boundaries of criminal law. Combat sports such as boxing, and perhaps more particularly, mixed martial arts, may occupy an uncertain position with respect to criminal liability, because of the potential seriousness of the harm that can be caused. Queensland does not currently regulate combat sports, whereas some other states do.