Redleg

From who?

Does that seem fair to you? If he was totally against Molan but was ordered to take him, do you think it is fair that he is blamed for it?

Correct. I know he is a mate and yes I stick up for mates, but every thing he has done at Melbourne has been for the club. He improved our footy department, he has chased sponsorship and membership for us, he helped get the foundation off and running and still seeks new members, he is helping develop Casey, he works after business hours giving tours of the new facilities, etc, etc, etc he bleeds for the club. I am sick to death of some of the snide comments from some on here who want to throw him under the bus. We are all in the trenches together and I hope to God we stick together. This is not directed at you Fifty-5 it was just an opportune time to post it in reply to your post.

And IMO our recruiting went completely backwards when BP came in to the MFC.

Probably.

I think if you reflect you will see that as one of your poorer posts.

Agree absolutely.

Hawks said they were offering $1m a year and wouldn't go higher. They said on that basis he becomes virtually a free agent. There were rumours Dockers would offer him $1.5m a year. If true he is probably going home.

13 clubs plus Bombers said they were not the 2nd club with a player being investigated for performance enhancing drug taking. Clubs that didn't reply were Power, Crows, Pies and Tigers. If other clubs truthful he is from the last four.

Not sure that is right either. To deliberately lose is to fix the result. The gain for doing so is irrelevant. Be it for money or draft picks throwing a game is match fixing and he just said the AFL has no evidence of that. Is this the precursor to tomorrow's expected MFC investigation announcement?

i understand what you are saying but it is based on a corrupt threshhold, like so much that is part of the AFL operation. We do a deal on penalty, to save the AFL face for a misguided investigation, I am sure the media would see through that. As much as that stinks, you would have to look seriously at a deal though. What if CC for example was agreeable to a bringing the game into disrepute by making flippant remarks charge and fined $10000.00, with half suspended and no other charges. I am sure that deal would be embraced. BTW as the rules of natural justice require you to be allowed to face your accuser, call your witnesses and evidence and test the other side's evidence, who would hear the case if we deny the charges? A case like this could go for weeks and surely the Commission couldn't hear it, nor have the expertise to, aside from the Family Law Judge on it who would have her own work to attend to. It seems to me that the AFL would have to set up a new tribunal to hear the charges. More expense, more mess, more waste of AFL resources and more distraction. Yes I can see a deal coming or the book being thrown at us, to justify their position and then the charges being dismissed by the Commission.

Firts that would only be one component of a defence not the whole defence. Second this alleged evidence against us only came about after a 7 month investigation, that may by the way be flawed, but why then shouldn't others be investigated to see what evidence comes out after 7 months, as you admit others did the same as us. Why only us?

Had a banana smoothie for lunch.

Do you know if they have gone to other football clubs? If not maybe they did not consider football sponsorship a priority this year. Were they lost as a result of the tanking inquiry? If so we have a claim against the AFL if we beat tanking charges.

So am I. Once the media storm hit as Ben Hur pointed out and other clubs were again identified and their personnel made damaging statements, still the AFL refused to look at other clubs or the issue generally and continued with the Inquisition against the MFC.The unanswered question is why? Maybe the answer is that we are not a major club and we were an easy target.

Thought so.

Correct , just another example of why the whole thing is a mess.

Sue, I couldn't agree more and I actually posted the same thing, weeks or even months ago.

No that evidence doesn't hold up by itself. Also no I am not affronted by our "evidence" whatever" it is , I am affronted that we are being investigated after being previously cleared, 3 years later, on the say so of a disgruntled former player.

Didn't we?

I'll do my best in answering and will go point by point as I don't know how to multi quote answer.Yes I say other clubs list managed as is evidenced by their selections, removal of players from the ground, the securing of in some cases of multiple priority picks, admissions from coaches and players of the practice, sudden improvement the year after list managing and basically observing several clubs do what we did in 2009. Examples, taking a fit Fev off the ground and keeping him off the last 10 mins when a few points up and losing, not selecting Fev against us for a pathetically minor indiscretion, sending players including Fev who has since denied any pressing injury, for surgery, who were not seriously injured and in need of it then and there, Freo sending a reserves side to Tassie against Hawks and getting belted by over 100 points and then the next week in a final, selecting their true side and beating the Hawks, GWS dropping 12 of their best players this year against the GC and losing and winning Whitfield and then bringing those players back the next week when they couldn't win against a superior side, the Pies, Hawks, Saints and others playing reserve sides to gain priority picks, crazy moves from the Carlton bench in 2007 and earlier and especially the last round of 2007 known far and wide as the Kreuzer Cup, need I go on. I would not make what others did the excuse for us, but rather an illustration of the accepted methods of list management, endorsed and approved multiple times by the AFL. In other words if the ruling body says something is ok you are entitled to accept that and act accordingly. I agree with your last point but I think you would have to discuss what went before and since to get to the heart of the matter of what is acceptable list management practice.

You are welcome as always. I do enjoy the posts that make me think.

As to your first point there very well may be more to the investigation. My questions then are why and what?Bob, again you have used examples of tanking for different purposes. The AFL has never distinguished in their rules this difference. Their rule is, to "play or coach beneath your merits" whatever that is, is a breach of rule 19A. Sloppy rule, sure is, you could drive a truck through it. You are correct in that the ordinary person would condemn tanking for draft picks, but probably not for a premiership improvement in that year. The trouble is both are equally illegal under the AFL rules. What we are left with is an investigation that is centred on a practice that is illegal under the rules, but which according to the ruling body is ok, but now perhaps not, if you are trying to get draft picks, though that is not written anywhere. As a sideline, tanking to improve a premiership chance may involve a drop on the ladder. Guess what, that affects draft picks. Draft tampering in all its glory, but approved by the AFL and the ordinary man. So now lets change the offence to tanking or draft tampering, but with the express purpose of getting a priority pick, which the AFL instigated and has now stopped. We won't charge on an ordinary pick being tampered with, only a priority pick. It's ok to drop down the ladder and get a better pick and draft tamper as long as it's not a priority pick. This in my opinion is Basil Fawlty running the show.

Why do you need to add the words " with the intention of gaining the best draft picks"? There is no offence of in the AFL rules that I know of in not performing to get high draft picks.There is of course an offence in not performing on your merits by Coaches and Players, whatever that means, but it applies without the rider of" gaining high draft picks" Given that the AFL and many of us here have repeated countless times, that it is ok not to pick your best side, best positions, remove players from the ground, etc, etc, etc under list management principles, what is the relevance of the reason for doing it? If it is an offence, it is an offence no matter what your reason for doing it. Given and I hate to mention again other clubs, as Ben Hur will descend upon me, have done what we are alleged to have done and every other club has list managed when it suited them, why is the reason for doing it of any consequence? Now I concede that maybe 36 years as a Barrister has clouded my thinking, or maybe an even longer time as a fanatical Dees fan has, but I would just love to be at the coalface arguing this, as while I think we did what others did, this persecution 3 years after the events and after a previous investigation cleared us, based solely on the statement of a disgruntled ratbag former player, stinks.

There we go again on the accepted AFL definition of tanking, the players doing their best "on the field". Despite 186 and other poor performances "on the field" over many years, we are not being investigated for that but rather performance "off the field", which the AFL has said is not tanking. Yes, I know what you were getting at, but again it is the basis of wrongdoing being established/proved, that is at the heart of this whole sorry saga.