Well here is my view on this whole sordid episode.

The MFC should be completely exonerated, due to lack of any legally binding evidence and the damage/penalty it has already suffered, to its brand and commercial operations, as a result of a selective investigation, for a course of conduct widely accepted being done by many other clubs, with most gaining substantially more benefit and advantage than the MFC, yet without investigation by the ruling body and without any explanation from it, as to why that is so.

Two things:

Does the AFL need to absolutely prove the charges with unequivocal evidence or does it only need to show reasonable cause for a guilty finding, i.e. that there was enough circumstantial evidence for them to form such a conclusion ?

Secondly, on the HS website they list their top 10 read stories each day. There are 4 AFL stories in their top 10 today - and I've checked a few times since about 7.30 am to a moment ago - and the "Demons to dodge draft ban" isn't one of them. My view is that the wider public aren't as fascinated by this story as you think. I don't see that the tarnishing of the brand will be that severe and that it will be out of people's minds pretty quickly.

Winning games of footy will put it on the back burner very quickly.

Can we pls just ignore the media SPECULATION for a couple of days. There is no point in beating ourselves up over this. It will be what it will be. The club will make the decision it thinks is best, Nothing said here will change ANYTHING.

Save you indignation/outrage etc until we no exactly what the situation is. Its a couple of days .

We are united as a club. It will make us stronger. Those f****ers that squealed in a report about us will get what they deserve. The AFL will get what they deserve in the court of public opinion.

We just want to win games.

So the Gaming Commission will withdraw our licences because Bailey 'didn't do his job'? I see now.

Applied universally, there wouldn't be any licences left in Victoria.

Look if you don't see the Head Coach being sanctioned for Match Fixing as a major possible problem with our Gaming Licences then fine...carry on. But i do & i expect my club to take the issue further if in fact the report is correct.

The Red & Blue Tank on the front page of the sport section is a great look for our corporate image.

Excellent! You want to fax that through to Gillon McLachlan before Monday, Redleg?!

Happy to, but I don't want to [censored] him off before we hear the result and then he finds me guilty of bringing the game into disrepute, for telling the truth..

Was that dream before or after the Bev dream?

It was actually after an AFL led nightmare.

Can we pls just ignore the media SPECULATION for a couple of days. There is no point in beating ourselves up over this. It will be what it will be. The club will make the decision it thinks is best, Nothing said here will change ANYTHING.

Save you indignation/outrage etc until we no exactly what the situation is. Its a couple of days .

We are united as a club. It will make us stronger. Those f****ers that squealed in a report about us will get what they deserve. The AFL will get what they deserve in the court of public opinion.

We just want to win games.

we the suppoters, are 'The Club'.

It, is not a private company.

And we want the board to act on our collective wishes to find an outcome suitable to the majority of our supporters.

Not to the AFL.

Some posters assert we will be charged with bringing the game into disrepute, not match fixing. They seem to base this on saying the AFL is hitting CC for comments likely to embarrass the AFL (requiring the AFL to give them publicity by running a 7 month witch-hunt, but we'll let that pass).

But how do you justify a penalty for Bailey in that case - did he say any such thing? And $500K seems a lot for MFC not reigning-in CC when he started to make such remarks. I'd be interested to see those posters address that. Of course it is easy to say CW is wrong re Bailey, but $500K for not controlling CC seems rich. Either CW is wrong about a lot or there is more info than we have seen so far.

In any case, I'd be very interested to see what possible wording there could be which says guilty but innocent at the same time. I think it may be achievable if the AFL includes a statement about tanking broader than just the MFC and the AFL takes a share of the blame for it.

You're quite clearly referring to me because I used the term "reining-in" - correctly.

If you read my posts you'll see that I very clearly stated that it would be far more preferable from "our" side if DB was not charged with anything. IMO if the AFL were prepared to accept this then the negotiated settlement would have been announced over a week ago. Quite clearly something has been holding it up and I've pointed to this being the case.

My prediction of the outcome is on the mark, including the argy-bargy around Bailey. I'm a centimetre away from the bulls-eye while you're still trying to find the arena in Google maps.

We may have botched tanking but I suspect we haven't botched the investigation. I don't know what the findings will be against DB until they're announced but I'm supremely confident they won't result in Webjet and Opel pulling their sponsorships or us losing our gaming licences as the resident hysterians here fear.

Can we pls just ignore the media SPECULATION for a couple of days. There is no point in beating ourselves up over this. It will be what it will be. The club will make the decision it thinks is best, Nothing said here will change ANYTHING.

Save you indignation/outrage etc until we no exactly what the situation is. Its a couple of days .

We are united as a club. It will make us stronger. Those f****ers that squealed in a report about us will get what they deserve. The AFL will get what they deserve in the court of public opinion.

We just want to win games.

but will the rage and kero get their just rewards?...............or is a wakely in the offing?

i am saying the club goes higher to clear the grey areas which could very easily bite us badly. The AFL are not in charge of everything.

As long as Bailey is implicated we are under the hammer.

No were not, Baileys getting suspended for not reporting CC comments, the presser next week will clear us of Match Fixing, you can put your house on it.

Two things:

Does the AFL need to absolutely prove the charges with unequivocal evidence or does it only need to show reasonable cause for a guilty finding, i.e. that there was enough circumstantial evidence for them to form such a conclusion ?

Secondly, on the HS website they list their top 10 read stories each day. There are 4 AFL stories in their top 10 today - and I've checked a few times since about 7.30 am to a moment ago - and the "Demons to dodge draft ban" isn't one of them. My view is that the wider public aren't as fascinated by this story as you think. I don't see that the tarnishing of the brand will be that severe and that it will be out of people's minds pretty quickly.

Winning games of footy will put it on the back burner very quickly.

You could be correct on the second point, but as that leading journalist CW says, the club will be stained.

Personally I believe the current Board owes it to those who went before and will come after, to maintain the best possible image for the club and therefore as I am confident that in a "legal " fight we would win, I would not accept any finding of cheating. Find another set of words and it may be fine.

As to your first point I believe the AFL can do whatever they want, using whatever standards they need, to make findings and administer their competition. HOWEVER, if those findings are challenged they need to pass the Natural Justice test in a Court and then a legal interpretation is placed on the behaviour and they must pass that standard, or have their rulings set aside. That can happen in a multitude of ways, as simply for example as a Court finding that decisions were wrongly made, bias has been shown, hearings if any weren't porperly conducted, evidence was illegally obtained, a finding was so far against the weight of evidence as to make it wrong, etc, etc,etc.,

I notice that some around here are writing letters and sending emails to Wilson and the Age. You're wasting your time - the Age is struggling across the board but the fact that people are responding (even negatively) suggests to them that their policy of unleashing a feral Wilson is working to attract more interest and readership.

Instead, it would be better to write to the advertisers of the Age whose product appears on any page where a Wilson article appears, that you will be patronising their competitors and not purchasing their product as long as she remains their chief football writer.

The Age online cares only for article hits. It knows that it needs numbers of views to justify the advertising space and advertising prices. While we all want to be informed of Kero's fiction, it's the online hits which will be part of her employment justification. Also note that most of her articles do not permit reader comments. The one yesterday did, and the balanced comment I wrote was not published (despite receiving an email claiming that it was). Writing to the advertisers is the best way you can impact The Age's decisions. That and cancelling subscriptions.

No were not, Baileys getting suspended for not reporting CC comments, the presser next week will clear us of Match Fixing, you can put your house on it.

oh i will be waiting for the Presidential Presser don't worry.

I hope it is substantially different to what we have been served in the last 24 hours.

...

As to your first point I believe the AFL can do whatever they want...

As I said, if there are no sanctions with regards to draft picks it's a very good outcome.

oh i will be waiting for the Presidential Presser don't worry.

I hope it is substantially different to what we have been served in the last 24 hours.

CW has been wrong from start to finish, they will be cleared of Match Fixing, otherwise they wouldnt accept the penalties, why would you plead guilty to a charge and lose 2 major sponsors and 2 pokie venues,thats not happening.

CW has been wrong from start to finish, they will be cleared of Match Fixing, otherwise they wouldnt accept the penalties, why would you plead guilty to a charge and lose 2 major sponsors and 2 pokie venues,thats not happening.

Yes exactly, but many supporters on here are already celebrating with cheap champagne at the reports already published. IF they are even semi correct the MFC will never climb the ladder to contend with the top sides.

To attract sponsors we must clear all this.

Happy to, but I don't want to [censored] him off before we hear the result and then he finds me guilty of bringing the game into disrepute, for telling the truth..

Perfect reasoning!!

Wilson finished her article:

whatever the final resolution to be announced in the coming days, nothing will alter the fact that the football world knows now what Melbourne did that year and that everyone involved in some position of off-field influence in 2009 knew what was happening. Even if they have now convinced themselves they didn't.

And nothing will alter the fact that Caroline "unofficial" Wilson has forever tarnished her reputation as a legitimate journalist over her frenzy to destroy MFC.

Do you see Garry Lyon in her sights in those closing sentences??

whatever the final resolution to be announced in the coming days, nothing will alter the fact that the football world knows now what Melbourne did that year and that everyone involved in some position of off-field influence in 2009 knew what was happening. Even if they have now convinced themselves they didn't.

That is a load of self-serving bullsh1t.

That is a load of self-serving bullsh1t.

language

whatever the final resolution to be announced in the coming days, nothing will alter the fact that the football world knows now what Melbourne did that year and that everyone involved in some position of off-field influence in 2009 knew what was happening. Even if they have now convinced themselves they didn't.

I think we are convinced that others have done it as well and are not under investigation.

Same as the Judd deal there should be a rule for all, not an exception for one.

language

Apologies.

I fully accept I wasn't being harsh enough.

Want to get a feel for what fans of other clubs think about this likely outcome ...

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/big-announcement-penalties-to-be-handed-out-to-melbourne-re-tanking.990131/

And the other side of the lunatic fringe here want to go to court.

"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right ..."

Yes exactly, but many supporters on here are already celebrating with cheap champagne at the reports already published. IF they are even semi correct the MFC will never climb the ladder to contend with the top sides.

To attract sponsors we must clear all this.

To attract sponsors we will need to win games.

Thanks for the link wyl

OMG what a great video, seems to me that someone can dish it out, but when questioned or called on it can't string a logical argument together. You think she would have been better prepared, although if you write an emotive, illogical opinion piece then that's what happens when someone pulls on the threads it all unravels and falls on the floor.

She has no clue of what's happening.

Still calling, no charges to answer..oh and Error, no keyboard -- press F1 to continue.

I remember my grandmother once saying that hate is a wasted emotion, but geez I hate that Wilson woman. Just watched the video, and hate her even more.

To attract sponsors we will need to win games.

that goes without saying...A Corporation will still stay clear if the MFC has the "Stigma" of Tanking, there are 17 other choices...

Mclardy said we would fight. That is what i still expect.

As to your first point I believe the AFL can do whatever they want, using whatever standards they need, to make findings and administer their competition. HOWEVER, if those findings are challenged they need to pass the Natural Justice test in a Court and then a legal interpretation is placed on the behaviour and they must pass that standard, or have their rulings set aside. That can happen in a multitude of ways, as simply for example as a Court finding that decisions were wrongly made, bias has been shown, hearings if any weren't porperly conducted, evidence was illegally obtained, a finding was so far against the weight of evidence as to make it wrong, etc, etc,etc.,

I am not a lawyer, but this makes sense to me, Redleg.