Introduction
This code of conduct sets out the behaviours and values that all club members and their
parents/siblings/related parties etc. are expected to uphold at all times.
The code is expected to be read in full and acknowledged by all club members that they will follow the code at
all times.
Club members are players and their parents/guardians as well as any person who takes on official duties with
the club (i.e. coach, team manager, committee member, age group co-ordinator etc.) in any capacity.
Club members are responsible for the adherence to the code of conduct of all related parties, even where
those parties may not have read/acknowledged the code. This includes playing and non-playing minor
children under their care, siblings, friends and relatives who may be present or involved in activities relating to
the basketball club.
Parents acknowledging the code do so on behalf of themselves, family members, children and all related
parties.

Section 1: General Code Of Conduct
This section applies to all club members including players, parents/guardians, spectators and related
parties.
1. Understand the rules of the game, club and competition and play by them at all times. Encourage
others to play by the rules at all times.
2. Ensure you familiarise yourself with Basketball Victoria, PDBA and Cardinia Life’s rules, by-laws and
regulations and follow them.
3. Do not break or encourage any other person to break any rules knowingly or ignorantly. If you are
unsure about a rule, it is your responsibility to ensure you find out before doing something that would
potentially break it.
4. Respect all referees and other officials and accept that their decisions are made in good faith.
5. Where you disagree with a referee’s decision, ensure any attempt to understand, educate or
remediate the decision/s are raised through the correct channels (see below)
6. Parents, players (with the exception of court captain) spectators and team managers are not
permitted to approach the referees to question any decisions. Any approach to referees regarding
decisions must be undertaken by the court captain and/or coach and must be done in a calm and
appropriate manner.
7. Do not verbally or physically abuse or intimidate any referee, player, parent, coach or any other
person.
8. Do not initiate or sustain unwanted physical contact of any kind with any other person.
9. Condemn the use of violence in any form.
10. Give 100% effort at all times and encourage others to do the same.
11. Ensure you are on time to all training and games and have the proper uniform or equipment at all
times. Where you will be late or leaving early or won’t have the proper uniform or equipment for
reasons beyond your control, ensure you notify the team manager and/or coach of the team as far
as possible in advance.
12. Follow directions given to you by your coach, team manager and any club/stadium officials.
13. Show a high level of sportsmanship - do not taunt, provoke or put off other players, deliberately
distract them, or cheer for their misfortune. Players should shake hands with other players before the
game and with the other players again, other team coach and referees after a game.
14. Do not interfere with, bully or take unfair advantage of any other player or person. Do not ridicule or
berate other players for making mistakes or not being as skilled, fast, talented etc. as you or
someone else.
15. Remember the object of the game is primarily for fun, enjoyment and fitness. Whilst it is important to
take the game seriously and desire to win games, the results of the games are not as important as
the enjoyment and participation.
16. Respect the rights, dignity and worth of every person. Do not discriminate against any other person
regardless of their gender, ability, cultural or religious background or any other factor irrelevant to the
game.
17. Listen to your coach and try to apply this advice in practice and games.
18. Respect the use of all facilities and equipment provided.
19. Understand that we operate a large club and all club officials (coach, team manager, co-ordinators,
committee etc.) are volunteers who are donating their time. Do not demand that they do something
for you by a particular date/time and do not place unreasonable expectations upon them.
20. Coaches and team managers are not babysitters. You are responsible for your children’s
supervision at all times. Unless prior arrangement has been made with another responsible adult, do
not leave your child at training/games or club events without your supervision even when coaches
and other adults are present.
21. Keep children in your care under your control.
22. Spectators, including parents/guardians and team managers should encourage and cheer their
child/ren only during games/training. Allow the coach to handle all coaching.
23. Parents/guardians should ensure they are contactable by the team manager and that the club has
correct contact information on file. Ensure you respond to any messages sent to you by the team
manager to confirm receipt.
24. Understand that coaches will use best endeavours to ensure roughly equal court time, and this may
span over a number of games. Coaches are not expected to provide exactly equal court time for all
children down to the second or minute. If you have an issue with the amount of court time your child
is receiving across multiple games, please speak calmly with the coach first to try to address the
matter.
25. All families (with the exception of a family who already coaches or manages the team) are expected
to take part in scoring duties on an equally regular basis. Families who do not know how to score will
be provided with support and/or training.
26. All scorers require a valid working with children’s check to be submitted to the club. Any player who
does not have at least one parent or guardian with a valid working with children’s check on file within
30 days of being requested by the club to provide one, will be in manifestly serious breach of this
code of conduct and deregistered.

Section 2: Coach Code of Conduct
This section applies to all coaches, in addition to section 1.
1. Ensure you are prepared for training and games with all appropriate planning, facilities and
equipment.
2. Ensure you arrive at least 5 minutes prior to the scheduled start of any training session and 10
minutes prior to the scheduled start of any game.
3. All coaches require a valid working with children’s check to be submitted to the club. Any coach who
does not have a valid working with children’s check on file within 30 days of being requested by the
club to provide one, will be removed as a coach and may be considered to be in manifestly serious
breach of this code of conduct and deregistered.
4. Focus on enjoyment, fitness and participation ahead of winning at all costs.
5. Teach your players to abide by the rules and respect officials, other players, coaches, parents and
spectators etc.
6. Be reasonable in your demands of your players and ensure what you are asking them to do is
appropriate for their age, emotional maturity, size and skill level.
7. Do everything within your power to ensure the safety and wellbeing of your players and other players
and people at all times.
8. Give all players a reasonable amount of court time - endeavour to make it roughly equal and where it
is unequal for a particular reason, endeavour to make up for that in the next game/s.
9. Wherever possible, group players with regards to age, skill, size and physical ability wherever possible
to avoid uneven competition.
10. Be prepared to lose sometimes and install in your players that losing is part of the game and life.
11. Ensure you are imparting useful, relevant and enjoyable basketball knowledge and skills as well as
imparting good social and interpersonal behaviours.
12. Keep your knowledge current - keep abreast of rule changes, skill changes and strategy changes as
much as possible.
13. Communicate regularly and constructively with your team manager and the club.
14. Avoid personal relationships with players beyond regularly accepted coach-player roles.
15. Avoid physical contact with players above and beyond the regularly accepted ‘high-5’, ‘handshake’,
‘pat on the back’ type interactions. If you are unsure whether a physical interaction with a player is
appropriate, assume it is not.
16. Respect the use of facilities and equipment provided and encourage your players to do the same.

Section 3: Team Manager Code of Conduct
This section applies to all team managers, in addition to section 1.
1. Ensure you have arranged for a scorer to be provided for all games.
2. Ensure you have a way of communicating with all of your players/parents and regularly communicate
with them all relevant information that they would need to know from the club and team.
3. Ensure any players who do not have a parent with a valid working with children’s check on file with the
club are requested to provide one and told it must be provided within 30 days.
4. Ensure no scorer over the age of 18 who does not have a valid working with children’s check.
5. All team managers require a valid working with children’s check to be submitted to the club. Any team
manager who does not have a valid working with children’s check on file within 30 days of being
requested by the club to provide one, will be removed as a coach and may be considered to be in
manifestly serious breach of this code of conduct and deregistered.
6. Ensure any complaints or issues raised by parents are addressed (if within your scope of control) or
referred to your relevant age group co-ordinator for club to address.
7. Do not approach the referees about decisions and do not approach or contact the stadium about
grading or other requests. All such correspondence should be via your age group coordinator.
8. Ensure you will have enough players available to field a team, and where this appears to be unlikely to
be possible, endeavour to bring in appropriate, eligible fill ins from the lower age group. Where you
are unable to get enough players, contact your age group coordinator asap.
9. Communicate regularly and constructively with your parents/players, coach and the club.
10. Ensure all players have the correct uniform and if they do not yet have a uniform, that they have
ordered one. Ensure any loan uniforms are returned to the club immediately after each game.
11. Ensure the score sheet is collected, paid for (when necessary) and correctly/fully completed and
signed by all players. Ensure any players who are not ‘printed’ on the sheet are handwritten in and
added as a ‘new player’ on the reverse with FULL details.
12. Ensure players within your team who are on a ‘stop play’ notice due to be non-financial as advised by
the committee, are not allowed to play until the committee advises the stop play is removed.
Administer this respectfully and privately as much as possible to avoid embarrassment for all parties.
13. Ensure you regularly check your team lists with the club to ensure they are correct and up to date.

Section 4: Club Official Code of Conduct
This section applies to all club officials (e.g. Age Group Co-Ordinators, committee members) in addition to
section 1.
1. Involve others in planning, leadership and decision making where practical.
2. Always make decisions in good faith and in the best interests of the club as a whole and the players
and members.
3. Refrain from personal involvement in decisions where you or a related party may have a conflict of
interest.
4. Ensure all parties are provided with equal opportunities to participate.
5. Ensure timely and relevant communication to club members, officials and coaches/team managers.
6. Ensure a safe, clean and enjoyable environment for all players and club members.
7. Ensure all club members and related parties are abiding by the rules and relevant codes of conduct.
Make it clear that abuse or violence in any way is unacceptable and will result in disciplinary action.
8. Respect the rights, dignity and worth of every person. Do not discriminate against any person or
group, and do not implement policies or programs which may hinder equal opportunity.
9. Ensure queries and requests from club members and officials are followed up as soon as possible, or
referred to someone who can follow them up in a reasonable timeframe where you can’t.
10. Ensure positive working relationships with other clubs, Cardinia Life, PDBA, Basketball Victoria and
any other relevant organisations.
11. All club officials require a valid working with children’s check to be submitted to the club. Any official
who does not have a valid working with children’s check on file within 30 days of being requested by
the club to provide one, will be removed as an official and may be considered to be in manifestly
serious breach of this code of conduct and deregistered.

Appendix: Consequences Of Breach
The club has a 2 warnings policy for breaches of the code of conduct, where the committee determines that a
breach is not manifestly serious.
The committee, in its absolute discretion will determine if a breach is manifestly serious, and administer the
penalty for the breach.
For a manifestly serious breach, the committee will deregister any members and their related parties
(parents/children/siblings/relations/friends etc., as determined by the committee in its sole discretion) with
immediate effect.
For a non-manifestly serious breach, the committee will record a ‘strike’ against the member/s.
Any member or family assessed as having breached after already having 2 warnings will be deregistered as
will their related parties (as determined by the committee in its sole discretion) with immediate effect.
In some instances where the committee deems it necessary, a breach which results in a strike may also result
in a suspension from playing or attending training and/or games and/or club events. Again, the committee
retains sole and absolute discretion over this penalty.
Any deregistration or suspension as a result of a breach of the code will not result in any refund being
payable.
The decisions made by the committee in relation to this code will be made by a vote of the full executive
committee or not less than 5 members of the full committee (including executive and general members),
where that 5 includes at least 2 executive members.
Where a conflict of interest would prevent a committee member from voting on the matter (i.e. where the
member who has allegedly breached is a committee member or related party) then the committee member
with the conflict will not be present for any committee discussions relating to the breach and will not
participate in the vote.

Basketball Victoria recognises that there are many legitimate reasons why still and video
photography at sports is very common and does not wish to unnecessarily restrict or curb
that photography.

It is perfectly normal and acceptable for parents to want to film their children’s sports to keep
as a memento of their growing up. This is becoming increasingly so with the technology being
widely owned.

It is also becoming increasingly popular for coaches to video their teams’ games to assist
them in training. Less common, but also becoming more so, is for the purposes of scouting
another team that will be playing the videoing team shortly. Videos can also assist in referee
training.

Having a video record of a game is also useful if there is a reportable incident during the
game. The video can be used in evidence. At more senior levels, the competition organisers
have made it compulsory for games to be taped for precisely this reason. In addition, the
knowledge that a game is being taped may act as a deterrent to bad behaviour because players
will know they may be captured on tape, even if a referee does not see the misdeed. So there
is a Safety angle to the issue as well.

On the other hand, photographs and videos can also be used for nefarious purposes.
Basketball Victoria is concerned to ensure that it and its Affiliated associations take reasonable
steps to ascertain that photographic depiction of basketball activities is being used for
legitimate and harmless purposes.

This means that competition organisers have to be ever vigilant in protecting participants,
particularly children.

Accordingly, the following advice is offered to assist in making decisions on whether or not
photography or videoing should be allowed:

Associations and leagues should usually allow parents and close relatives to take photographs
and video tape games or training provided the parent or relative is known to the association.
As a courtesy, the coach or manager of the opposition team should also be notified of the
intention to photograph or video the game.
Coaches who wish to video their own team’s games or training for training purposes should
also normally be allowed to do so. Again, the opposition should be informed. Parents of the
coach’s own team should be advised by the coach if it is intended to regularly video games
or training and the reason for it.

Referee coaches wishing to video games for training or evaluation purposes should advise the
teams of their intentions prior to the game.

Some coaches desire to scout teams that they will be playing in the future and a convenient
way of doing this is to video the game. If this is to occur then both teams should be advised
in advance. However, this should usually be allowed.

Should any person take objection to the photographing or videoing, they should be asked the
reason why they object. It should be explained to them that normal policy in these
circumstances is that the photography or videoing should be allowed. However, if the person
objecting has a legitimate and strong reason why the objection is made, then a bar should be
placed on the photography or videoing. A strong reason may be that the child concerned is
the subject of contested custody proceedings or has been the subject of violence or threats
and publication of a video or photograph may compromise the safety of the child.

Associations should exercise common sense in this matter, bearing in mind the above advice.

Gerry Glennen

Governance & Operations Manager/Solicitor

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