Former Western Bulldogs player Aiden O’Driscoll’s early exit from the AFL and his struggle for additional compensation are drawing attention to how brain injuries are treated within the league’s insurance and benefit frameworks. O’Driscoll was drafted to the Bulldogs in November 2023 at age 18. Less than three months later, during his first AFL practice match in January 2024, he was involved in what he described as a “head-on-head” collision. “I was hit … right behind the ear. It actually left a fracture behind my ear as well. So, it was a massive hit. I had a seizure … and I woke up in an ambulance,” O’Driscoll told the ABC.
Scanning later revealed multiple brain bleeds. O’Driscoll said club doctors showed him the images and explained the findings. “To see that’s my brain after one hit was a shock, a massive shock,” he said. An AFL medical panel report in April 2024 stated that “Aiden has more micro-haemorrhages than the panel has seen in other athletes with concussion” and recommended he not return to contact sport. The AFL formally retired him on medical grounds that month. In the months since, O’Driscoll has spoken about ongoing symptoms, including dizziness, nausea, anxiety, and difficulties sleeping. He told the ABC he often breaks down and feels uncertain about how he will manage work and daily life. “I feel like I have lost basically everything,” he said.
Financially, O’Driscoll has accessed some existing AFL Players Association (AFLPA) support mechanisms but has been unable so far to meet the criteria for others. The AFLPA offers a career-ending injury payment of up to $500,000 for players forced into retirement because of football-related injuries. O’Driscoll received a lump sum of more than $150,000 under that policy. He then sought a further lump sum from the AFLPA’s Severe Injury Benefit (SIB) fund, which can pay up to $600,000 for players considered permanently injured and unable to work full-time. The SIB is funded from the players’ share of AFL industry revenue and operates outside the league’s group insurance arrangements.
In a letter dated March 31, the AFLPA advised O’Driscoll that his SIB application had been rejected. The letter said he had not demonstrated a “permanent impairment of cognitive function” that had reduced his future earning capacity to normal retirement age by at least 40%. The correspondence stated that he could ask for a review of the decision. In his submission, O’Driscoll wrote that the injury had resulted in “mental health battles” and “impacts everyday life, having to deal with ongoing symptoms and constantly thinking about the trauma, along with now having worries about what the future looks like.”
His agent, player advocate Peter Jess, has said he will appeal the decision on O’Driscoll’s behalf. Jess has argued that the league, as the governing body of the competition, should accept clearer responsibility for the consequences of football-related brain injuries. “If you go to work and you get hurt, you expect that your employer would then have a proper compensation scheme for any damage that it creates at your workplace. This is not the case,” Jess said, as reported by ABC.
ABC said the AFLPA has declined to comment on O’Driscoll’s individual claim but has pointed to broader programs funded through its Injury and Support Fund, including the SIB. The association says AFL and AFLW players “take on significant risk when playing our game and their health, safety, and wellbeing continue to be the AFLPA’s highest priority,” and notes that more than $8 million in support was provided to past players in the last 12 months.
O’Driscoll’s situation is unfolding as the AFL’s group insurance settings for brain injuries are being scaled back. From May 1, more than 500 current AFL players no longer have access to total and permanent disablement (TPD) cover for head trauma through their superannuation-linked group insurance. Zurich Insurance, which underwrites the AFLPA superannuation fund, has removed TPD benefits for traumatic head injury, concussion, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), post-concussion syndrome, and any neurological impairment linked to brain injury for claims made on or after that date.
Zurich said it was recently asked to provide “a revised proposal for the provision of insurance” within the AFLPA superannuation fund, whose trustee is AMP. A Zurich spokesperson confirmed players were advised that no TPD benefit would be payable after May 1 for those specified conditions. “There remains continued widespread uncertainty about the long-term health impacts and risks associated with concussion events from playing high-contact sports, including the subsequent development of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE),” the spokesperson said, as reported by ABC. Previously, AFL players could hold up to $1.1 million in combined death and TPD cover through the fund. Under the revised structure, TPD cover has reduced by $650,000 and death cover by $350,000, with brain injuries specifically excluded from TPD.
AMP has attributed the removal of concussion-related benefits to elevated claim volumes in the past five years and a lack of insurer willingness to offer group cover for these risks to AFL players. AMP said Zurich’s revised proposal was selected after a market process but that “no insurer was able to provide group cover for these injuries.” Zurich has noted that the SIB, introduced in May 2025, was established “to support players who have suffered a significant cognitive or bodily impairment from playing football,” though it is not an insured benefit.
AFL players with severe injuries can also access payments from a $54 million injury and support fund, but they remain excluded from state-based workers’ compensation schemes such as WorkCover. The exclusion is based on the assumption that professional athletes are covered by separate insurance or benefit arrangements. Lawyer Michel Margalit, principal of Margalit Lawyers, is leading a class action against the AFL on behalf of around 100 former players alleging concussion-related harm.
Margalit argues that the recent withdrawal of group TPD cover for brain injuries undermines the original policy rationale. “The very reason professional athletes are prohibited from receiving workers’ compensation is ‘because sporting contestants will generally be covered by other insurance arrangements,” she told ABC, citing the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Bill 2013 explanatory memorandum. “Zurich’s landmark decision shows that is no longer the case.”
Margalit told the ABC that “the support system intended to support injured footballers continues to erode and fail those left with life-altering concussion-related injuries,” and described the AFLPA Hardship Fund as “a far cry from a statutory compensation scheme” and “wholly inadequate and inferior to WorkCover.” She has called on governments to act on the 2023 Senate Inquiry into Concussions and Repeated Head Trauma in Contact Sport, which recommended considering the removal of the workers’ compensation exclusion for professional sportspeople.
These developments in the AFL illustrate how concussion and CTE exposures are shifting from conventional group insurance structures towards industry-funded schemes and litigation. O’Driscoll’s case, set against the backdrop of reduced TPD cover and ongoing legal action, provides a current example of how those shifts affect injured players navigating medical retirement, impairment thresholds, and long-term income security.
