Jarrod Mullen and Nick Stevens have shown us how much The Frownlow Medal means to professional footballers in Australia.
The Frownlow Medal is awarded to the player whose off-field demeanour epitomises the values of the modern-day footballer and draws attention to the status of footballers as role models to young Australians. It covers Australia’s four major football codes: the men’s and women’s National Rugby League (NRL), Australian Football League (AFL), the A-League (Football) and Rugby Union’s Super Rugby competition. NRL player Shaun Kenny-Dowall won the inaugural medal in 2015, while AFL player Noah Balta is the most recent recipient.
The Frownlow Medal Hall of Fame honours former players and players who received media attention in previous seasons, for similarly scandalous behaviour, and its inductees include Ben Cousins and Julian O’Neill.
The former footballers have already been nominated for Frownlow honours but put their hand up for honours yet again because the medal is such a prestigious honour.
Ex-AFL player Stevens was jailed for three months and fined $3000 after being found guilty of domestic violence offences against a former partner. His horrific treatment of the woman also earned him induction into the hall of fame and The Frownlow Medal Wife Beaters Club, as well as a Frownlow Medal Wife Beater Tattoo.
Stevens has since been found guilty of deceptively charging families tens of thousands of dollars for pools they never received. He accepted $170,000 from six families to deliver and install swimming pools at properties in the Mildura region, and was found guilty on 12 counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception and one charge of using a false document.
Mullen made his name in the NRL, and was also back in court recently. In mid 2026, he was allegedly caught driving while suspended in Wollongong, before allegedly being detected driving while suspended again in Port Macquarie weeks later.
The former Newcastle Knights player earned his first Frownlow nomination in 2019 after a positive drugs test saw him banned from the NRL for four years. Soon afterwards, he took a near fatal drug overdose.
Stevens and Mullens clearly can’t resist the lure of The Frownlow Medal or the awards night for Australia’s most prestigious sporting prize, where anything goes.
Image: NuNa
