Formal complaints made against Lisa De Vanna, the Matildas great at the centre of explosive allegations about harassment and bullying in Australian women’s football, allege she “intimidated” and “threatened” a former teammate.
De Vanna denied all wrongdoing. De Vanna elected not to participate in a three year probe into a dispute with former Melbourne City teammate, Tyla-Jay Vlajnic. She was never interviewed by Football Australia and cited a lack of procedural fairness and a lack of transparency regarding the investigation. De Vanna said the whole process left her “distressed”.
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In documents seen by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Vlajnic made formal complaints about De Vanna’s behaviour to Football Australia in 2018, accusing her of harassment.
Vlajnic alleged she had suffered more than three years of bullying by De Vanna, beginning in early 2016. An Apprehended Violence Order was taken out against De Vanna in 2019.
De Vanna denied all of Vlajnic’s allegations and the merit of the AVO, which was later withdrawn.
A Football Australia investigation looked into allegations De Vanna threatened, intimidated and harassed Vlajnic between 2016 and 2019. The report included information from Vljanic, third-party witnesses and text messages – it found five allegations against De Vanna “to be supported”.
Those findings included that De Vanna, in November 2016, “sent an inappropriate and threatening text message to the complainant in which you stated that you would go to the complainant’s grandparents’ house and wait for the complainant outside her grandparents’ house”.
It also found that De Vanna had repeatedly “verbally abused, harassed and/or ridiculed” Vljanic during a 2017 NPLW match between Bulleen and South Melbourne, and that after a 2018 NPLW match, De Vanna “approached the complainant and made physical contact with her and/or pressed her up against a wall.”
The probe upheld Vlanjic’s complaint that De Vanna “acted aggressively” towards her after a 2018 NPLW game, and that all of those actions made Vlajnic “feel intimidated and/or harassed and/or distressed and/or threatened”.
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