AAA<\/p>\n
The chief executive of one of Victoria\u2019s largest community sports clubs, with more than 3000 junior players, remained in the senior role for almost 18 months despite being charged with the online grooming of a 14-year-old girl for sex.<\/p>\n
The failure to suspend Eltham Wildcats Basketball Club chief executive Richard Irving \u2013 or disclose he was the subject of serious criminal charges involving a minor \u2013 has prompted outrage from politicians and parents while raising grave concerns about Victoria\u2019s working with children checks<\/a> and the safety of junior athletes across the state.<\/p>\n Judge Daniel Holding sentenced Irving to jail for 10 months, but ordered he be released on a good behaviour bond after serving only two months.<\/p>\n Experts say Irving\u2019s case is riddled with the same monumental failures <\/a>that the government\u2019s overhaul last year, prompted by the arrest <\/a>of accused childcare paedophile Joshua Brown, promised to fix.<\/p>\n Irving was arrested by Victoria Police detectives in March 2024 and charged with using a carriage device to groom a child for a sexual act in January 2025 \u2013 just days after starting as chief executive at Eltham Wildcats.<\/p>\n Even after Irving was found guilty by a jury on May 26, he remained in the role until June 11 when the club announced to its 7000 members on social media that the 51-year-old had \u201cresigned for personal reasons with immediate effect\u201d.<\/p>\n The club told The Age that although it became aware that a Richard Irving had been charged with these offences on May 21, \u201cit was unclear whether the individual facing those charges was the club\u2019s CEO or another person with the same name\u201d.<\/p>\n Irving was jailed on Friday for sexually exploiting the purported child online, whom he instructed to masturbate and told he had engaged in sexual acts with girls her age. Unknown to Irving, the 14-year-old girl he thought he was messaging was actually an undercover officer based in Queensland.<\/p>\n On November 13, 2023, Irving matched with \u201cLily\u201d, the undercover officer posing as a 14-year-old girl who lived on the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n Lily told Irving she was in year 9 and that she was 14. Irving responded: \u201cIs it bad that girls your age really turn me on?\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article Irving asked Lily if she was into older guys, and told her he was a \u201cnaughty guy\u201d. He went on to ask Lily if she ever masturbated or watched pornography.<\/p>\n The undercover officer and Irving then moved to messaging on Google Chat, where Irving sent a photo of himself in his bed.<\/p>\n Irving asked to \u201cpretty please\u201d send a photo of herself and the officer responded with an AI-generated image of a girl with the appearance of a 14-year-old child. After receiving the image, Irving responded: \u201cOMG you are beautiful\u201d and \u201cis it bad that my cock twitched\u201d.<\/p>\n He offered to send photos of his penis to Lily and asked if she wanted to \u201cplay a game where I tell you things to do to yourself\u201d. The conversation continued to become more sexualised, as Irving suggested Lily masturbate and touch parts of her body.<\/p>\n Irving, a father of two adult daughters, sent several other disturbing sexual messages over the two-week period they spoke.<\/p>\n Irving\u2019s 17-month tenure as chief executive is expected to cause considerable embarrassment for the 60-year-old basketball club, which said it had a \u201czero tolerance for child abuse,\u201d according to its annual report in 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cAt our club, everyone must operate within our accepted ethical framework, including Basketball Victoria\u2019s Codes of Conduct, Basketball Victoria\u2019s Member Protection Declaration, Victorian Working with Children Checks and our Clubs Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy and Code of Conduct,\u201d says the report.<\/p>\n A 2023 memo sent out to families said all staff, including its executive, required valid working with children clearances.<\/p>\n \u201cIrving\u2019s application was subjected to a national police check for prospective CEOs,\u201d the Wildcats told The Age. \u201cThe police check included criminal history and convictions. Irving provided the club with a valid working with children card certificate when he was recruited on October 22, 2024. Irving commenced work as the Club\u2019s CEO on January 6, 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article The club\u2019s handling of the crisis has incensed several parents of junior players, who only learned of Irving\u2019s conviction when contacted by The Age.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure whose fault this is, but it\u2019s a shocking look for the club. To not tell members what had really happened and say he\u2019d left for personal reasons is just so ordinary … They obviously thought they could just bury the whole thing,\u201d said the father of two junior players at the club.<\/p>\n Another parent, whose child played representative basketball at the club, said she was incredulous that Irving had managed to stay in the senior role without any intervention by police or government authorities.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if the club knew, but how could this happen? What a shit show. And what was he [Irving] thinking? Did he think he\u2019d get off the charges and just carry on?\u201d the mother said.<\/p>\n The club said it was concerned about the legal ramifications of telling parents details of the charges.<\/p>\n \u201cWe advised our members that Irving had resigned for personal reasons,\u201d a spokesperson said. \u201cThe club was also advised of its legal obligations regarding privacy matters and the legal restrictions applying to the disclosure of information concerning an individual, especially given the matter was still before the court.\u201d<\/p>\n The case also raises wider concerns about the state\u2019s newly reformed child safety mechanisms.<\/p>\n Under the government\u2019s several regulatory schemes \u2013 including the child safety standards, reportable conduct code, and working with children requirements \u2013 Irving should have been suspended from any work with children after his arrest back in 2024.<\/p>\n Greens MP Anasina Gray-Barberio, who chaired the state\u2019s inquiry into childcare failures, demanded the government explain the failing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s seriously distressing that a person not just charged but convicted of grooming was still leading one of the state\u2019s biggest junior sporting clubs.\u201d<\/p>\n A government source who works in child safety, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were unauthorised to speak publicly, said it was \u201cincredibly disturbing\u201d that authorities failed to stop Irving from working with kids.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s not surprising,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the changes made [last year] were the right step forward \u2026 but there\u2019s still so many problems we face internally [with information sharing and delays].<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s simply not good enough when kids are at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n A Victoria Police spokeswoman did not respond to questions from The Age, stating the force could not comment while Irving still had 28 days to appeal his sentence.<\/p>\n The Department of Government Services, responsible for the state\u2019s working with children checks and reportable conduct scheme, has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n There have been years of warnings<\/a> that state authorities are failing to protect children from harm, by missing glaring red flags and neglecting to investigate compliance failures or follow up on complaints.<\/p>\n But Premier Jacinta Allan only vowed to act after Brown\u2019s arrest \u2013 which put thousands of children at risk of STDs and allegedly subjected babies and toddlers to sexual abuse \u2013 shone a light on the dire state<\/a> of Victoria\u2019s child safety systems.<\/p>\n One disturbing case included a daycare worker whose husband repeatedly raped a seven-year-old girl<\/a> while under her care. Despite frequently leaving the little girl alone with the predator, the worker did not lose her working with children check, and was able to open up an NDIS-approved care service.<\/p>\n Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Eltham](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6f1a01ea3130e09ecb79cd7a9463c5c138e0684d.jpeg\")
Eltham Wildcats chief executive Richard Irving was jailed on Friday. Eddie Jim<\/p>\n![\"G8](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/bdcf886daa5dcb3139cbd3883840ed9d18b0d5604835497abe56a8af1add40bf.jpeg\")
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Carla Jaeger<\/a> is a journalist for The Age. Got a tip? Email carla.jaeger@theage.com.au or message carlajaeger.62 on Signal.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-805984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}