sue

This from Niall in today's Age may be well known to those who have followed things more closely than me, but it explains why Hird wheels out his wife: - James being unable to fire the shots himself, having signed a no-disparagement clause in his settlement with the AFL. Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/the-most-divisive-year-since-1996-20131214-2ze9o.html#ixzz2nV3BQEcV

I enjoyed the post on Bomberblitz which complained about the Hird/whatever thread being removed because then he couldn't celebrate the victory of Hird getting his $1m. I have a bridge to sell to that fellow. On the other hand, maybe he is wiser than I give him credit for. Paying Hird to keep out of the way overseas may reasonably be seen as a victory for Essendon supporters given the damage he has done.

I got the impression from looking at comments on other threads that it has been very recently removed.

I had a look at bomberblitz and the thread to do with all this has disappeared. Any good conspiracy theory as to why?

The article by Patrick Smith pulls no punches, listing Hird's sins and AD's woes: A million bucks for Hird to twiddle his thumbs - quite a punishment ends with

And you posted here about their (anonymous) views at the time?

As a tax-payer I'd say that is the only good thing to come out of the whole episode. Of course with all those lawyers and accountants around, he may be able to figure out a way of avoiding the extra tax in this financial year. And he will have a reduced income in the next year anyway (perhaps - who knows, the AFL may make him a special grant to keep the 'secret' self-reporting leak out of court).

Stop making up these fantastical stories mm2. What are you smoking? - this thread is for serious discussion only,

Or hope get in the way of despair. OldDee: how many games will be have to win (or whatever positive measure you'd prefer) in the first 10 rounds for you to climb out of the slough of despond and return to the chirpy Young Dee you doubtless were in the 60's?

Bendigo Bombers to be promoted to the AFL shortly.

That's why I believe he was telling the truth when he said Hird was definitely not being paid. AD is perfectly capable of obfuscating and dodging when he has to, especially if he might end up looking ineffectual or unknowing. He obviously thought it was absolutely clear that Hird would not be paid and was probably shocked to find out he was. Perhaps a wiser AD might have suspected something when Essendon was arrogant enough to extend Hird's contract.

True. Though it may take a bit of cunning work to hide the payments since the business would want something in return. I expect many of us would have ideas on how it might be done without giving the AFL or other sponsors grounds for complaint.

Agreed. Why would he lie so blatantly? He could have easily buried his response in the usual fluff, qualifications and spin. But even if one was not certain, it doesn't justify calling him a liar like R Wilson did in AFL boss Andrew Demetriou must resign or be sacked following Essendon saga unless you had firm evidence he was lying. The pro-Hird camp are obviously confident AD won't sue them. I wonder if he will get to the point where he thinks putting up his hand for leaking ASADA's information to Essendon (with whatever penalties flow from that) and then being free to take Essendon/Hird on personally is on balance more profitable to him than putting up with this.

It is surprising that this aspect hasn't been given a run in the media by the anti-Hird camp. Presumably because it is predicated on AD having 'illegally' tipped them off. He may have expected a bit of gratitude for foolishly tipping-off Essendon; he must be sadly disappointed. But I doubt if anyone believes he didn't tip them off, given the admission that he spoke to Essendon after the ASADA briefing but just didn't name the club which was being investigated. And as far as I'm aware, he didn't ring up the other 17 clubs to tell them the same story.

I think Redleg has summed it up nicely. I suspect if it wasn't for the fear of AD being exposed as having tipped-off Essendon (resulting in the 'self-reporting'), the AFL and AD would not be putting up with Hird's and his mates' behaviour.

Ah, the penny finally drops. I now understand that it is only with hindsight that I could say that the AFL should have finalised the penalties in February. I should have known at the time that the AFL was too incompetent to foresee that a PP might become an issue, and would have to either add penalties or withstand pressure from other clubs and the press 7 months later. Sorry I didn't express doubts about the AFL at the time. But silly me, I was naive enough to assume that the tanking issue was closed in February and to assume the AFL had reasonable management foresight and decent processes. I'm now disabused of the latter at least.

RR old bean, I already did a mea culpa and acknowledged the penalties were indeed announced in February - hence this discussion moved on to me saying the AFL as a wise managing body should have included the possibility of a poor MFC performance meriting a PP in their determination of the original tanking penalties. No hindsight needed there. I repeat - a competent managing body thinks of all reasonable possibilities and covers these in the original penalties rather than appear to fold to pressure and add ad hoc extra penalties later on. I don't see any hindsight in any of that.

Nor were the trousers apparently.

Of course you can 'reasonably predict' that it may be a reasonable possibility that a bad team for 6 years could get worse in year 7. In any case, did we have to get worse to merit a PP, or could we merit one if we just stayed as bad? I defer to your better knowledge of such matters, but my first sentence stands regardless. I don't see that being told at the beginning of a season that "no matter how bad you are this year, you will not get a PP at year's end", would have much of an effect on membership in that year. We were told in September/October we wouldn't get a PP. Will that effect membership numbers in 2014? Probably not, though of course we won't be able to sift that effect from other more important ones such as the Roos' appointment.

True, I did forget that the tanking penalties were announced in February, so the AFL may not have expected us to be so abysmal. But any decent governing body has to think of all possibilities; and us not improving after ~6 bad years was not beyond the bounds of possibilities. As for your last sentence, on the contrary, announcing 'no PP' would be just the right sort of kick in the pants for a club which tanked. When you make appropriate penalties, you may well have an impact of members etc. So what. Thanks for your therapy. But I'd rather you addressed the substance of my remarks. Until then I wait for you to 'get over' your endless demands that others get over their desire to mention the tanking affair in the context of AFL governance.

Well it is an interesting speculation that a private part of our 'deal' was 'no PP' but 'you can have PJ. Personally having seen the AFL in operation, unlike you, I would not put money on it. I'd go for incompetence.

I don't disagree with anything you wrote above except how do you explain the AFL not including a 'no PP' penalty at the time of the original (and only formal) penalties. Presumably they didn't think think we would never get a PP then. Did they think we'd suddenly start winning matches and it wouldn't be an issue at the end of the year. Ha! They were either incompetent at judging likely reactions at the time, or easily leant on later. Neither do them any credit.

Since it wasn't included in the original penalties, I don't see how you can say we were never going to get one. It would have been easy enough for the AFL to have included a no PP penalty at the time if they wanted to. Whatever you think of it, the AFL's processes are deplorable. You don't add penalties on the run because of a campaign by newspapers, other clubs or even the public. The behaviour of the AFL with the drug issue is similarly poor. Rhino - I wish you would 'get over' the fact that many of us will continue to 'play the victim' by daring to refer to the tanking issue as an example of the AFL's inconsistencies. We have 'got over it' and are happy with Roos etc, but that doesn't mean we should forget. It would be nice if people could comment on it without you instantly responding 'get over it'.

From today's Age:- Weapon to blame: Bombers Intriguing to think Essendon will be claiming that the things that occurred because Robinson failed to put 'adequate processes' in place to prevent them happening actually did not happen in other proceedings.

hits the proverbial nail on the head