AFL 2025

[wenchbarwer]

Steve Hooker could play a bit, and had a bit of toe

Wiki says he has a best 100m time of 10.79!

[dedja]

Steve Hooker could play a bit, and had a bit of toe

Wiki says he has a best 100m time of 10.79!

with or without his pole*

[wenchbarwer]

Steve Hooker could play a bit, and had a bit of toe

Wiki says he has a best 100m time of 10.79!

with or without his pole*

Ask Shirvo

[dedja]

I’m no fan of Goyder and agree his time is up, but I’m surprised the author didn’t also ping him for being on the grassy knoll.

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/subscrib ... -2-NOSCORE

Michael Warner: Richard Goyder’s days on the AFL Commission are numbered — he won’t be missed

No-one talks up the tenuous achievements of faceless men in suits better than the AFL establishment. But Richard Goyder’s reign isn’t worthy of celebration and his exit from the game can’t come soon enough.

When the AFL press release comes out lauding the “retirement” of commission chairman Richard Goyder (after exasperated club presidents finally find a way to get rid of him) it’ll be brimming with the usual superlatives about extraordinary legacies and colossal contributions to the game.

No-one talks up the tenuous achievements of faceless men in suits better than the AFL establishment.

But Goyder’s long reign as a Master of the AFL Universe – 14 years as a commissioner and nine as the big boss – isn’t worthy of celebration.

His exit from the game can’t come soon enough.

The recent fiasco surrounding Izak Rankine’s four-match suspensionwas the latest in a long line of contrived outcomes from the Goyder era, the same bloke who presided over the self-immolation of the once-respected national airline, Qantas.

The Rankine farce was the net result of a combination of moral grandstanding, adherence to the rules of identity politics and outright hypocrisy.

Since being ordained as a member of the AFL’s prestigious board of directors in September 2011, Goyder has watched on passively during some of the darkest and most questionable episodes in football history.

He was there at the table during the big daddy of them all, the Essendon drugs debacle, when the Mike Fitzpatrick-led commission oversaw a tainted process punctuated by media leaks, damage to reputations and a denial of natural justice.

Goyder stood by and said nothing when Fitzpatrick, the head of a body that was supposed to determine the charges laid against the Bombers and its officials, blatantly compromised the integrity of the process by involving himself in secret deal making with financier John Wylie (on behalf of the AFL) in a bid to sweeten the incentives being offered to James Hird to accept a penalty.

Again, Goyder said nothing when Andrew Demetriou insisted on sitting on the commission “hearing”, despite having made almost weekly public comments about the Essendon investigation, including claims about being privy to information beyond what had been reported.

The tragic Melbourne tanking saga, which was really just an attempt by the AFL to cover-up the shocking discovery that a conspiracy to lose matches for priority picks went right to the top of the club, also played out during Goyder’s time.

The late Dean Bailey, the Melbourne coach whom the AFL chose to finger with the blame, would confide to friends before his death in March 2014 that he believed there was a link between his cancer and the conduct of the AFL investigation.

More recently Goyder was at the helm for the botched Hawks racism scandalor “the Hawthorn thing” as he liked to call it.

In effect, what the AFL did after its eight-month “independent” investigation failed hopelessly to reach a verdict was to carefully negotiate the probe away and absolve itself of any responsibility for what happened next.

Goyder told club bosses to get out of pokies, only to oversee an explosion in the game’s lucrative links to corporate bookies.

He gushed over his golden boys CEOs begging Gillon McLachlan to stay, undermining Andrew Dillon’s appointment, and was in charge when the game’s controversial concussion chief was exposed as a plagiariser and a phony.

He failed to heed the warning signs in Melbourne’s damaging boardroom war, sold out free-to-air broadcasts on Saturdays and persisted with a deeply flawed illicit drugs policy that was great for brand protection but devastating for drug-addled players.

Peter V’Landy’s, his NRL equivalent, has run rings around him since Covid and Tasmania’s dreams of a 19th licence have become a nightmare because of the commission’s divisive demands for a roof.

And now, fuelled by a cringing desire to hold on as long as he can, he’s installed himself as chairman of the nominations committee currently interviewing prospective commission candidates to replace him.

It’s a poor corporate record yet Goyder appears to believe that the AFL competition simply cannot go on without him.

The next league chairman (likely one of Jeff Browne or Peter Gordon) must reassert the commission’s authority and have proper oversight of the executive and would do well to untangle the game from its fraught dalliance with woke ideology.

Goyder will still be there on Brownlow Medal night to suck up the plaudits and again in the VIP Olympic Room on grand final day as Australia’s business and political elite line up to kiss the ring, but his days are numbered and he won’t be missed.

[gadj1976]

"The late Dean Bailey, the Melbourne coach whom the AFL chose to finger with the blame, would confide to friends before his death in March 2014 that he believed there was a link between his cancer and the conduct of the AFL investigation."

This ^, is tin foil hat stuff

[Dutchy]

Warner is a brilliant journalist and the AFL hate him which says all you need to know about them

[am Bays]

Warner is a brilliant journalist and the AFL hate him which says all you need to know about them

He's been persona non-grata since this was published https://www.hachette.com.au/michael-warner/the-boys-club

Russian dissidents are looked upon more favourably in the Kremlin than what Warners is in AFL House...

[Dutchy]

Warner is a brilliant journalist and the AFL hate him which says all you need to know about them

He's been persona non-grata since this was published https://www.hachette.com.au/michael-warner/the-boys-club

Russian dissidents are looked upon more favourably in the Kremlin than what Warners is in AFL House...

Yep Im not a book reader at all, but I enjoyed that book, well worth a read if you are interested in politics of sport.