sue

re the sentence in bold: Why do you have no doubt? If she has spoken to such a person, the evidence suggests that person fed her a pile of rubbish. (Unless you think Don M is lying.) So either she has been conned or she has not spoken to anyone who as seen it,

I didn't hear the radio so I'm confused by this discussion of who is lying. How is it credible that Don M is lying in saying the MC's response does not include the stuff she alleged? The AFL has the document. It is either in i or not - no grey areas. What could he gain by lying? Or is this discussion about something else? Please explain.

MFC and Essendon should get together and have a chat to the Editor of the Age.

You continue to amaze. Yes of course what the AFL decides is the only thing that matters. But as many have posted, the atmosphere she has created has made it harder for the AFL to clear us without looking weak. If you think CW's relentless attacks are not affecting the AFL you really do believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden. It certainly is affecting the public and sponsor's perception of our club. And now that Don shows clearly that her article today was purely invented spiteful rubbish, you still sort of defend her. How on earth can you say the article summed up what has been reported for months? I don't recall MFC's 'excuses' being reported before. Do you?

It was pleasing to read Don M's 'letter' to CW. It has been wise to say little until now, but when he was able to point out that she had MFC's response which is now in writing all wrong, it was time to go for the jugular. It will be interesting to see how much prominence this is given in tomorrows waste of newsprint. So it looks like the 'unofficial' response was gleaned from Demonland as some cynics speculated. I hope the Bombers tear her to bits too. She epitomizes what is wrong with journalism today.

Wise decision Mr Moderator given they threaten to sue anyone who reproduces the claims. But would it be safe to say 'enter the following words into your search engine to find the article in question' in the future? Will you allow that? (In the current case, the names of a couple of authors and the player's name are sufficient.)

After re-reading that mangled sentence several times, I assume she is saying that Melbourne's poor performance in 2009 was as damaging to the image of the game as the tanking is. An amazing statement! All teams have been abysmal from time to time and no one has claimed that the game was brought into disrepute because of it and certainly no penalties have ever been applied by the AFL for being hopeless (quite the contrary with the PP and early picks etc). So if we take her at her word, there should be no penalty for our 'tanking' since it was no more damaging to AFL's reputation than our cruddy season was. She is so vitriolic, she doesn't read what she writes.

Last night I had the strangest dream. The Age was in court as a witness for the MFC in its defamation case against CW. As evidence of the harm she had done, the Age's evidence was that her articles led them to drop their sponsorship of the MFC. I must stop eating those pizzas before bedtime.

Yes and the reason so many of us are completely [censored] off is that the man in the street would think no more of it than they do of the similar cheating by a number of other clubs if CW and others didn't decide they needed to fill some column inches to further their miserable careers.

Exactly what I was thinking. She reads Demonland. So improve your writing people or the Age's standards will fall even further.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me - unless you want to live in a dictatorship

Gosh, baby boomers who haven't completed high school. Slow learners. Of course if they had gone to uni then they'd be elite leftist w@nkers. Lose lose with you mjt.

no, but bowing to it may well.

Smelt doesn't mean it was. Unless you want to accuse the ACC of corruption.......

Pity then that the head of the ACC said the report had nothing to do with the government. He said they invited the sports minister at the same time they invited all the club CEO's to the press conference.

mjt, on 12 Feb 2013 - 13:19, said: I think you will find a lot of diehards will contribute to such a fund if they feel we have been unfairly shafted AND legal advice is that we have a good chance of winning. In any case, the current discussion is between those beating their chests and those hiding behind pillows. No point in doing either until we know what the charges, evidence and penalties are, if any.

For once I don't think this is a typical beat-up. It is reasonable to raise - Why the hell are coaches taking such things? What is the ramification of them being around the club, physically and culturally?

Source?

I see what you are saying. But it doesn't rule out some vague 'bringing the game into disrepute' charge I'd guess? Eg. X tried to match fix but he was ignored by the coach/players. Though as we've agreed, but for the investigation, it is not clear how the public would have been aware of the 'disreputable' event.

Yes (hopefully) and no (sadly). I suspect McLachlan was only referring to the 1 match fixing case that the ACC has identified. And that it is not in the AFL and is probably tied to betting scams. That leaves room to look at AFL-style tanking as either a totally separate case or of a somewhat different nature (which it is).

I fear Hoopla's arguments in #1319 is correct - after this long investigation the AFL will have to hit us for something or look very silly. I just hope they and the MFC come up with a formula which lets the AFL pretend it wasn't wasting its time but does no significant damage to the club or further damage to our 'brand'.

And if the result is as bad as you predict, I assume you will be spewing too. I'm sure you won't be tempted to gloat.

No. If the AFL wants to clobber MFC just on the basis of those remarks (as we know them) I'd say fight it in court. If they exonerate MFC and want to rap him over the knuckles for 'inappropriate comments' I'd say that he should put his knuckles out for rapping and we can all have a good laugh about political correctness gone mad. If they want to seriously penalise him for the jokes then I expect he might want to take it to court and I think the club should support him. Your position of saying the MFC will sink because of him is so over the top. If the AFL clobbers the MFC it will be for something more substantial than his jokes. But your posts and question above assumes what CC said will be sufficient to sink the club. That is not credible.

I, and I expect many others posting here, don't know CC from the proverbial bar of soap. I have no opinion if he is doing a good job or not, whether he is worth peanuts or $400K or if he should be paying us instead. Just like the other 35,000 supporters you mention. There may be many reasons for wanting him gone, but from what is publicly known to hang this whole thing around his neck is just ridiculous. It sounds like you have a long history of wanting him gone and can't resist the temptation to use the tanking joke to push your line. You may be right in wanting him gone, I've no idea. But what you wrote just looks a bit silly. I dare say if you put it to the vote of the 35,000 members that saving the club required all posters to Demonland to be banned from all matches, they'd go for it too.

Oh good grief. So this is all down to someone with a bad sense of humour who is paid too much.