No one has yet been prepared to address the most obvious factor of Laura Kane’s tenure, is it because she is a woman that she is so severely scrutinised? Graham Cornes

Someone had to pay the price, however, no one has yet to address the most obvious factor of Laura Kane’s tenure. Is it because she is a woman that she is so severely scrutinised? Writes Graham Cornes.

There had to be a victim. There has been too much dissatisfaction for the AFL chief executive officer, Andrew Dillon, to ignore it.

So the AFL’s executive general manager of football, Laura Kane, has suffered the ignominy of being “moved sideways” – or is it a demotion?

Regardless, Kane becomes the victim of the public discord with all things AFL. She has been relieved of that vital role of running football. Someone had to pay the price.

Lachie Schultz of the Magpies leaves the field injured. Photo by Janelle St Pierre/AFL Photos via Getty Images.

Hard-nosed News Corp journalist and colleague Michael Warner fanned the flames of AFL discontent in his article on May 14: “Laura Kane’s football department has lurched from one problem to another since she was promoted ahead of her time in August 2023. Confusion has reigned over umpiring inconsistencies and match review officer verdicts and now debacles surrounding the handling of incidents involving Willie Rioli and Lachie Schultz,” he wrote.

To know Michael Warner is to like him. A hardworking and forthright Aussie bloke who just happens to have a good way with words, he takes no prisoners with his observations.

He can be blisteringly ruthless. Given his fearless approach he is not the AFL’s most favourite journalist. His 2021 book, The Boys Club, attacked the AFL from all angles, exposing and amplifying secrets, scandals and backroom conspiracies.

I sat alongside him in Augusta as he covered the 2024 Masters golf tournament but we talked as much about football as we did golf.

Two things struck me. The first was how hard he worked and how productive he was in the tumultuous excitement of that famous golf tournament. The second was his uneasy relationship with the AFL.

He seemed to be fighting a running battle with those who control Australia’s biggest sporting organisation. It’s no surprise that within any objective reporting his words highlight the negatives of the AFL.

Laura Kane. Photo by Josh Chadwick/AFL Photos via Getty Images.

It’s not hard to find fault with an organisation like the AFL. There are so many vested interests, conflicting allegiances and colliding agendas.

Consider eight different states and territories in which the game is played and you are never going to get accord.

Then there are the different administrations and supporter groups of the eighteen clubs. You can’t please everyone. And there is always something to complain about.

So, let’s distil the main issues. And there are several. One of the reasons being bandied around for Laura Kane’s “sideways move” is the mishandling of the Willie Rioli and Lachie Schultz issues.

Ironically, the AFL didn’t need to engage the Rioli issue after the club had investigated his inappropriate text messages. He stood himself down as recognition of his indiscretion.

It was a typical case of shutting the gate after the horse had bolted. All the AFL needed to do was endorse the club’s and Willie’s self-imposed sanction. It was hardly worthy of any draconian reaction.

As she was the public spokesperson after the Lachie Schultz controversy, she became the scapegoat. It wasn’t so much that the game should have been stopped when Schultz was concussed, it is that somebody in the umpiring department lied about whether the umpires on the field knew he had been injured.

The game didn’t need to be stopped because Schultz was in the hands of the trainers, on his feet and moving, albeit unsteadily towards the interchange bench. There was no reason to stop the game, particularly as he was nowhere near the action.

But the query was raised, Kane obviously sought information from the umpires which turned out to be incorrect. It became an issue only when audio was discovered that revealed the umpires did know Schultz was injured and were monitoring him.

No case to answer, so why lie? The attempt to cover up was worse than the original incident.

However, those two incidents aside there were, and still remain, serious issues the AFL, either through blind loyalty or plain obstinance refuses to address.

Of course they revolve around umpiring. It’s easy to criticise umpires. We all do it and the vitriol is determined mainly by the bias of our allegiance.

Nevertheless, even the impartial observer will be regularly frustrated and angry at the decisions that are made. It’s the umpires who are having to deal with the new rules and interpretations that are foisted upon them every year.

The “stand” rule is an abomination. Laura Kane didn’t introduce that to AFL football. It was the former AFL ahead of football Steve Hocking.

He, who is so lauded for the state of the game, is most responsible for its greatest frustration. The 50m penalty results in any perceptible tremor from the man standing the mark. It’s served its purpose, it’s too big a penalty, so now it has to go the way of the flick pass. Flick it.

So too must the stand rule go. The old rule about standing the mark worked fine. You can move laterally on the mark as long as you don’t go over it. Why it needed to be changed is one of football’s great mysteries.

The other cause of fan dissatisfaction is the perennial holding the ball rule. I doubt we’ll ever reach accord on that one. In 2025 it’s more difficult than ever because the game is more congested than at any stage in the game’s history.

Players are bigger and stronger, and their tackling skills have been honed more finely. There is no time and no space, which means there are more stoppages.

Whoever is running football in the future can make a few small changes that Laura Kane could have made if she had the confidence to.

Bring back the third man up in the stoppages. It will increase the number of clearances and put an end to this year’s ugliest sight in football – the two ruckmen wrestling and grappling each other.

And one other thing. Why, all of a sudden, are we allowing players to push their opponents in the back when contesting a mark? One of the vital platforms of the laws of Australian football has been trashed overnight.

It’s the same when players use their opponents’ shoulders to push up for a mark.

We can’t forget the Match Review Officer. Locked into a ridiculous system that demands players are found guilty of even the most innocuous of offences, he hands down totally inappropriate penalties.

But Laura Kane wasn’t responsible for that. It was the “brainchild” of a previous head of football, Adrian Anderson.

However, no one has yet been prepared to address the most obvious factor of Laura Kane’s tenure. Is it because she is a woman that she is so severely scrutinised?

Sure, her CV is amazing. She did play footy for Melbourne University Women’s Football Club then graduated through the administrative ranks at North Melbourne but it doesn’t hold the same gravitas as the career at Geelong that Steve Hocking had.

There have been outstanding women administrators at both the AFL and the SANFL, however one can’t help but feel Kane’s job was made a lot harder because she was judged by a different standard.

However, amongst all this controversy, criticism and constant scrutiny, there remains one inescapable fact. The AFL is the biggest, most successful, most community oriented, socially responsible, compassionate, not-for-profit organisation in the country.

Does Richard Goyder get the credit for that? Don’t ask Michael Warner.