It was the phone call, in January 2021, which floored Glen Bartlett.

The former Melbourne president believed there were serious behavioural issues involving Demons senior coach Simon Goodwin, so raised this — and other issues — with AFL commission chairman Richard Goyder.

The AFL tells clubs it doesn’t like surprises, but this telephone call from Bartlett to Goyder for guidance surprised Bartlett. Indeed, it stunned him.

Bartlett told Goyder he had been made aware of multiple “serious behaviour issues at a senior level’’ within his club.

“Richard stopped me and said ‘You need to get Gill to a meeting because he’s been dealing with your CEO (Gary Pert) for 18 months about it’,’’ Bartlett now recalls to the Herald Sun.

“This was news to me.’’

The crisis meeting was held on February 2 between Goyder, McLachlan, Bartlett and his vice-chairman and McLachlan’s friend Mohan Jesudason.

“Gill, during the course of the meeting, said Pert had basically engaged in appeasement,’’ Bartlett says.

“Pert was engaged in appeasement at Collingwood for years and was doing the same thing at Melbourne for 18 months.

“I was sitting there in shock, 18 months, and my mind went racing back over various events. I was dealing with this for the previous month or two based on information, and Gill is saying he has been aware of it for 18 months?

“They gave me a real strong message that if I needed to remove the coach, then remove the coach, and if Pert won’t play ball then remove him. I indicated I wasn’t there yet, would follow proper process and may circle back.

“I went and had a discussion with the senior coach (in February) and as far as I was concerned I had done what I was required to by the board and from the AFL meeting.’’

He stops there and says “everything is in my affidavit’’.

Bartlett has launched legal action against Melbourne president Kate Roffey and three club directors, Channel 9, The Age, its reporters Caroline Wilson and Jake Niall.

He has also sent a legal letter to McLachlan, but has not launched action yet.

“I have until 10 June to decide,’’ he says.

Bartlett is taking court action because he says there has been “malicious attack after malicious attack in the media and false stuff put out’’, including McLachlan’s comments in an interview with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell.

Bartlett suddenly resigned after eight years as president in April 2021, when Melbourne was 4-0 and on the road to ultimate glory.

The announcement was a thunderbolt, and speaking publicly for the first time about how events unfolded, Bartlett says the machinations behind the scenes were also troubling.

He says bullying and threats from the media, Melbourne and the AFL, pre and post his departure as club boss, created “serious health issues’’ for himself and fiancee Victoria.

“It’s just been relentless,’’ he says.

“It’s proven to be the most horrendous period of my life.’’

During his interview with the Herald Sun, Bartlett is at times distressed as he reveals the personal toll on him, his family and business.

Vicki even tried to take her life and on the night before the 2021 preliminary final he spent the night in hospital after an incident with Pert and Goyder, he says.

“Vicki made an attempt on her life and I luckily was there and was able to intervene,’’ he says.

“She had a conversation on March 21 with a senior director at Melbourne, where basically some threats were made about me getting stitched up, that it was too hot in the kitchen and I had to get out, stuff like that.

“My fiancee Vicki … she’s lodged formal complaints and I know there is stuff sitting in Goyder and Gill’s emails which haven’t been dealt with, that involves serious mental health and suicide attempts.

“I am disgusted by the way they (Goyder and McLachlan) have handled it.

“I was put into Melbourne by the AFL. I’d never met Gill, and I remember one call. He said ‘We need an answer, we want you to do it, you’ve been anointed by Mike Fitzpatrick and Andrew Demetriou, but we need an answer’.

“Gill spoke to me more times before he had met me than he did after eight years of me putting my full bloody life into the job to turn around Melbourne.”

When he raised issues relating to Goodwin’s behaviour: “He (Gill) was fully briefed, as was Goyder, of what was going down in early 2021 at Melbourne.”

This was just before Bartlett was appointed by the club’s noms and recommendations committee for a three-year extension from late 2021 as president.

Just weeks later, Bartlett was being run out of town — he says because he was pushing for hair testing for all club leaders including the president, CEO, executives and coaches.

“You’d have to talk to Vicki, but it was like ‘he doesn’t see this coming’, the threat was he was going to be destroyed, the comment was made that she (Roffey) wasn’t going to be able to stop her media friends from stitching Glen up,” Bartlett recalls.

“And Richard and Gill have done nothing about any of the threats and bullying.

“Gill hasn’t been prepared to meet her. They get a defamation lawyer to ring up Vicki’s support person to say there’s nothing to see here.

“Does someone have to commit suicide before they pull their finger out and have a cup of coffee with you? Like, ‘are you OK, can we talk through this’?

“My blood boils when I think about it.

“Richard Goyder’s favourite answer to me, even on the hair testing, which he supported me introducing, was ‘I’ll just check with Gill and I will come back to you’. He never came back to me. That was two weeks before I got tapped on the shoulder.’’

A health and safety lawyer and HR expert, Bartlett says he felt he needed to act decisively on the hair testing.

“I wanted it introduced for anyone in charge of people. I wanted hair testing, really in solidarity with the players, but I had in mind a stronger policy (than for the players) — a two-strike policy, first strike some education and welfare, and do another test and if you test positive you’re out,’’ Bartlett says.

“I had a debate with Pert about it, then spoke to Goyder and Goyder’s first thing was, ‘I think it’s a really sensible idea, Glen, I’ll just run it past Gill and get back to you’.

The crisis meeting between Goyder, McLachlan, Bartlett and Jesudason has become infamous after being revealed by the Herald Sun early last year.

“I know for a fact your coach is out drinking with players at the Sorrento pub — are you crazy? That doesn’t work,” McLachlan allegedly said at the meeting.

‘’You can’t be doing that s--t. You have to make tough decisions. It doesn’t work.”

But soon after, Bartlett says McLachlan changed his narrative.

“Gill was talking to people around me,’’ Bartlett says.

“Clearly the AFL endorsed this change. Why? The only thing that changed was me going hard on this hair testing. That was the only thing.’’

Asked if he believes there was a cover up, Bartlett says: “What do you think? There’s been so much bulls--t spun out about why I stepped down. I’m not a dumb guy, I’m not a precious guy, but why do you think I’m suing? It’s not because I’m not president.’’

Asked if he believes there was a protection racket, he says: “Put it this way, if it was just a boardroom coup that’s something different. But there’s no way those guys (Melbourne directors) are ringing me up without Pert and Gill’s support.

“The question for Gill is, in that meeting when he talks of 18 months of appeasement, what was he talking about? Basically, Goyder said on February 2, that ‘Glen, there are no secrets in the AFL, players and staff all know what’s going on and everyone is looking to you to do something’.

“I think the AFL abandoned me. If you look at my resume and what I’ve done for the game. They put me in there, they made it clear I had their full backing during February and March in 2021. I had their full backing to do whatever I wanted.

“The only thing that changed was my push on hair testing.

“All I wanted to do, was create the very best environment for all of our people, not sack people because they had made a mistake or two, but make sure I could look every parent in the eye and say I was doing everything to create the best environment which was free of illegal drugs, gambling, workplace bullying, sexual harassment, infidelity, bad behaviour … that’s what I was about.’’

Bartlett stood down as president on April 9 and as a director on November 4, 2021.

“I remember that day (November 4), because there was a pretty ordinary article about me on the AFL website,’’ Bartlett says.

“Vicki rang up Brian Walsh (AFL senior executive), she was on the phone to him for about 45 minutes, and she gave Walshy an absolute lashing and the headline on that article was changed. And within half an hour, I had a text message from Richard Goyder thanking me for everything I’ve done for Melbourne.

“This is seven months after I stood down as president, a text message thanking me and a missed call from Gill, seven months later.’’

Grand final week was also extremely stressful for the couple, as media attacks escalated and they felt excluded from events, he adds.

Vicki complained to Walsh and Andrew Dillon, who is tipped to replace McLachlan as CEO, about an article in The Age by Caroline Wilson.

“Vicki — who was specifically targeted in an article by Wilson — asked ‘When has this targeting of a former president and his fiancee ever happened before?’ And they both said never. They both acknowledge I didn’t get the normal thank you letters Gill sends and the normal things the AFL does to recognise people like me. I don’t really care about that, but what I care about is, what is a life worth?

“I will give you an example of Gill and you can quote all of this. We are about to break a 57-year drought, I was told I’d be sitting with Pert and the other directors, but I was put outside the roped off area, and everyone could see I was on the outer. I had a nice seat but I was seated away to make a point in my view.

“At quarter-time Pert spoke to Vicki and me. I told Pert to make sure you collect us after the game. No one did. We got to the lift, you’ve got Gill, Kate Roffey, Pert, and instead of saying ‘Let Glen and Vicki in’, the doors closed and they went down to ground level.

“Anyway, I’m standing in the race with old mates John Worsfold and Andrew Embley. Vicki was taking a photo of us and Gill was standing behind us, and Gill moved his head at almost right angles to get out of the photo.

“You know what Gill said to me? Not Glen, congratulations well done. None of that. He’d been walking around saying to people he felt awkward about me and Vicki being at the finals – why would he feel awkward? Anyway, he said ‘When the siren goes make sure you and Vicki don’t go on the ground and wait over on the side by the race’.

“I said, yeah, no worries Gill. As if that was going to ever happen.

“The lengths they have gone to try to eliminate me, to expunge me … you’ve got to ask why?’’

Bartlett says he did receive a phone call from McLachlan about 18 months after he stepped down as president and months after he’d sent the AFL boss a legal letter.

“He rang and basically said ‘All this legal stuff is basically crap, Glen’,” Bartlett says.

“I asked him if he had read anything and he said ‘no’.

“I said ‘As AFL CEO, how can you say it’s all crap if you haven’t read anything’?

“He said ‘It’s crap and I think you need a different perspective, I think you need some medical help and we’ve got the best medical people at the AFL’.

“I basically told him to get stuffed. I was disgusted. That tells you a lot about how they deal with people. Where were you 18 months ago — hiding behind a pillar or playing polo?’’