Demons probe sponsor Ben Polis's racist rants

[rpfc 28,045]

Carlton survived their association with Dick Pratt even after his name was soiled through his price fixing shenanigans, frolicking with hookers & passing brown paper bags under the table to Chris Judd. The club needs to distance itself from the remarks & have the EW CEO publicly apologise. I don't think the club should be held guilty by association on this issue, the MFC & EW are two different entities. Losing EW as a sponsor without a replacement could mean we are back into a 2-3million dollar debt by the end of the year. I don't like that the EW CEO has made these remarks, however I'd rather the club wasn't put into a position of debt again. A middle ground position may have to be found by the club in this instance if that is possible.

For us and EW to survive as a partnership, Polis is going to have to do some serious mea culpas here, it wasn't just racist remarks about Jurrah (if you can put a 'just' behind that) it was awful spirited comments about Gillard, Jews, Muslims, and his own customers.

And he has got to want it. He has to be far more humble than he has shown by the quotes in the paper.

If I was Cameron Schwab I would call him up and say 'these are the things you have to do to save your reputation and our partnership' and give him a long list of charitable involvement and continued denunciations of his words followed by counselling and apologies.

It would be the most humbling thing this guy has ever done, will ever do, and I don't think he gives a sh!t enough to do it.

Edited April 5, 2012 by rpfc

[Lordweaver 235]

Let's be pragmatic and not throw the baby out with the bath water, if we have a FOJ sponsor waiting in the wings, let's go for it, otherwise stay calm, get an apology and move on.

[rpfc 28,045]

Let's be pragmatic and not throw the baby out with the bath water, if we have a FOJ sponsor waiting in the wings, let's go for it, otherwise stay calm, get an apology and move on.

What a stand...

[Bonkers 987]

For us and EW to survive as a partnership, Polis is going to have to do some serious mea culpas here, it wasn't just racist remarks about Jurrah (if you can put a 'just' behind that) it was awful spirited comments about Gillard, Jews, Muslims, and his own customers.

And he has got to want it. He has to be far more humble than he has shown by the quotes in the paper.

If I was Cameron Schwab I would call him up and say 'these are the things you have to do to save your reputation and our partnership' and give him a long list of charitable involvement and continued denunciations of his words followed by councilling and apologies.

It would be the most humbling thing this guy has ever done, will ever do, and I don't think he gives a sh!t enough to do it.

Yeh pretty true, the club is caught between a rock & a hard place. FML.

[Sir Why You Little 36,587]

Carlton survived their association with Dick Pratt even after his name was soiled through his price fixing shenanigans, frolicking with hookers & passing brown paper bags under the table to Chris Judd. The club needs to distance itself from the remarks & have the EW CEO publicly apologise. I don't think the club should be held guilty by association on this issue, the MFC & EW are two different entities. Losing EW as a sponsor without a replacement could mean we are back into a 2-3million dollar debt by the end of the year. I don't like that the EW CEO has made these remarks, however I'd rather the club wasn't put into a position of debt again. A middle ground position may have to be found by the club in this instance if that is possible.

If we keep this sponsor we will have no chance to grow into the chinese market. They don't take kindly to racist jokes.

CS is right under the hammer now.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

Does anyone know how much a lesser sponsorship (say Bronze) is worth?

[Romey 148]

I will be disgusted if the club does not cut ties with this company immediately.

[binman 41,923]

Let's be pragmatic and not throw the baby out with the bath water, if we have a FOJ sponsor waiting in the wings, let's go for it, otherwise stay calm, get an apology and move on.

Thanks this post has clarified things for me. You are taking the [censored]!

[dees189227 12,027]

Its like the universe made things will be ok for melbourne when Jim is here but once he goes [censored] will hit the fan. Seriously what else can go wrong. Now we will have to ditch our sponser and we dont have second 1 yet so we are back to nothing.

Cameron and Don have to stand strong now and get us out of this. Im glad we have someone so headstrong as coach. But we could look back on this and it could be the making of us. I fear for saturday but stranger things have happened. Its probably a blessing we are playing in perth so we are out of this state.

[Lordweaver 235]

No I'm not, I'm with Bonkers who is a lonely voice of reason amongst the many posturing saints, holy men, do gooders and the self righteous who see no middle ground, no reason, no compromise, no sense.

[stranga 328]

The game is what you make it. If you really wanted, you could quite easily stop reading the forums, stop watching Fox on weekdays and stop reading the rags, and just turn up on game day. Then footy just becomes about the footy again.

You get caught up in the politics because you choose to.

I hear what your saying but in reality its hard to shut yourself off form all media broadcasts and outlets in this day and age, unless you live in a dark room 24/7. For starters i should probably frequent these forums less.

These are not just rumblings in a gossip column, these are agendas that can bring down football clubs. Hard to not concern yourself with them.

[Striker475 696]

I'm prepared to give up on 2012.

The club has my membership money. I also bought a Reach jumper which, funnily enough, has the EW on it too. Considering requesting the club produce a cover-over for that on the Reach jumpers. Between everything, I'm just tempted to crawl into a hole and not hear anything about the MFC until March 2013. I really am.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Striker475

[She Devil 64 21]

We need to make a stand and cancel the sponsorship.

Perversely I believe a stand like this will attract another major sponsor very quickly. The sponsor who comes in after this rubbish and after the Melbourne FC have made a public stand against racism and innappropriate behaviour will get a million miles of publicity as well as be associated with a club which has strong family values.

I also think that while we might burn a little bit of the $2m per season, we would get a second major sponsor as well. The sum of both of these might be slightly less than the sum of EW and a FoJ sponsor, but its a small concession when you are trying once and for all to show the football world and the wider community that we actually stand for something. We stand for what Jim worked so hard for. We stand for giving everyobne a go, and striving to fulfill everyones potential.

SACK ENERGY WATCH NOW.

+1

emailed the club [email protected] with my thoughts.

[whatwhat say what 22,070]

i will be disgusted if we don't sever ties with energywatch.

[Jaded No More 67,609]

Like the club needs to deal with angry delusional supporter emails on top of everything else.

How about you wait for our reaction to this before you jump on the "I am an embattled supporter, I am disgusted, I am microwaving my membership as we speak, this will not stand, ARGH!".

Do you know what I do with customer feedback emails? Trash them.

[hardtack 10,400]

No I'm not, I'm with Bonkers who is a lonely voice of reason amongst the many posturing saints, holy men, do gooders and the self righteous who see no middle ground, no reason, no compromise, no sense.

So by your comments, I assume that you see some sort of "middle ground"? What might that be then?

[Lordweaver 235]

Bring on the footy, stop contacting the club with your self important, holier than thou stance. Let the administration do what they do best and you do what you do best which is hopefully supporting the club.

[warren dean 193]

Then contact EnergyWatch about it and tell them how you feel, don't blame the club.

Did this first! Was on hold there for a while too!

[daisycutter 29,296]

If I was Cameron Schwab I would call him up and say 'these are the things you have to do to save your reputation and our partnership' and give him a long list of charitable involvement and continued denunciations of his words followed by councilling and apologies.

sorry rpfc, if it was anyone else i'd prob let it slip....but in these days of due diligence......

[Bonkers 987]

So by your comments, I assume that you see some sort of "middle ground"? What might that be then?

Seeing as all the Melbourne branded clubs are sponsored by EW the clubs could band together & put pressure on Colis to stand down as CEO. He would presumably still have majority shareholding of EW but be able to save his own brand? Not saying it will happen but it is one option.

[Guest Thomo]

Let's be pragmatic and not throw the baby out with the bath water, if we have a FOJ sponsor waiting in the wings, let's go for it, otherwise stay calm, get an apology and move on.

Get your head out of the clouds. If there was a sponsor waiting in the wings it would be on the front of the jumper. There is no sponsor close to signing, and this makes it harder.

[Lordweaver 235]

It's compromise Mr Hardtack, it's a means by which a win win situation can be engineered out of the situation, you want to reprimand the CEO, you still want the dollars, find some middle ground so we can achieve both outcomes. Emailing the club with alarmist ravings aint gonna help, as I have said before, I'd settle for a serious apology, maybe a generous donation to a charity and keep the 2 mill. I just don't see the point in jumping on my high horse with all the others and demanding an execution, I want the dees to win games of footy primarily. I think with our association with Stynes we have enough moral credits to overcome this distraction and move on.

[Robbie57 2,001]

I have no doubt we will sever ties.

The delay will be that the club is getting legal advice on the best way to do that so they dont have to give a cent back and can sue the pants off EW. That needs to be done carefully.

[BarrassHarrass 25]

We could probably sue Energy Watch to be honest. Under contract law and the doctrine of frustration. Its arguable in my view.Sorry to bore you with legal insight, but here is a short explanation for those interested.

"

The doctrine of frustration - which is effectively a court order that the contract is no longer binding on either party (the contract just stops in its tracks) - is very rarely considered by the courts. The usual way in which the doctrine is raised is where some disaster has overtaken the contract and one party then fails to perform. The other party then complains that the first party is in breach. The answer to this may be that failure to perform is not a breach because the contract has been frustrated as a result of the disaster. In short, frustration, if successfully argued, is an excuse for failure to perform.

The doctrine, as I have said, is rarely argued successfully. This is because the courts have taken the view that one function of contract is to allocate risk and that, if something does go badly wrong, then this is just a risk which the contract ought to have contemplated. See the passage on p 724 last para from the case of Paradine v Jane in 1647 which reflects the idea that contract promises should be kept, whatever the circumstances. In other words, at the very moment that one party finds it very hard to perform, the other party wants an assurance of performance, or at least damages in lieu, because this is what contract is all about. People are paid to take the risk of difficult performance. The law nevertheless did allow some softening of this absolute principle and developed a doctrine of frustration.

This treatment of frustration will not be as detailed as most of the other areas of the law of contract which we have examined. This is partly because, as already noted, it is a rare in practice and also because we are limited in the time left to deal with the remaining topics in the course.

The development of the doctrine of frustration

HPH 724-727

The case book outlines briefly the history of the development of frustration. The beginning of the doctrine is said to be the case of Taylor v Caldwell in 1863, a case involving the hire of a hall. Before the day on which the hirer was to use the hall, it burnt down. This was held to be a frustrating event which caused the contract to be terminated and neither party was in breach. Frustration cases since then have involved a number of different types of frustrating event. The key question is always: is this an event which excuses the parties from further performance or is it an event which is the type of risk which the contract expressly or impliedly contemplated? If the latter then the contract is not frustrated and, if a party does not perform, he or she is in breach.

<a name="The theoretical basis for frustration">The theoretical basis for frustration

The courts over the years have had a great deal of difficulty in deciding what is the proper theoretical basis for the court intervening in the contract and declaring it to be frustrated. The theories have varied and there have been fashions over the years. The three headings below reflect the three phases or fashions, with the last one being the one which courts tend to adopt to-day."

The important part in all that is that we can sue EW for damages due to the disaster. It's rarely successful though. But this is one such case where it may be. The expectation damages would be the money we expected to be given by EW.

Edited April 5, 2012 by BarrassHarrass

[Tricky 341]

No I'm not, I'm with Bonkers who is a lonely voice of reason amongst the many posturing saints, holy men, do gooders and the self righteous who see no middle ground, no reason, no compromise, no sense.

So your solution then is 'let it slide cause we need the cash'.

Those kind of ethics have a habit of biting you on the ass.