Inside story: How footy lost its war with former Melbourne president Glen Bartlett

The AFL continues to be haunted by the “shoddy execution” of former Melbourne president Glen Bartlett, writes MICHAEL WARNER — and the league’s time of reckoning has only just arrived.

The first rule of the boys’ club is: you do not talk about the boys’ club.

The second rule of the boys’ club is: when a master of the AFL universe must be sacrificed for the empire’s greater good, he’s afforded a soft landing.

Think Graeme “Gubby” Allan amid the 2016 Lachie Whitfield drugs affair.

When the walls closed in around Allan and Greater Western Sydney, Gubby quietly took his marching orders before spending part of his football exile working and studying in Manhattan thanks to the good grace of then powerful player agent and football establishment figure Craig Kelly.

Allan has since been welcomed back into footy’s fold as though nothing ever happened.

The same cannot be said of former Melbourne president Glen Bartlett, whose shoddy execution at the hands of multiple parties in April 2021 continues to haunt the competition.

They broke their own golden rule by kicking Bartlett to the kerb and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Former Demons president Glen Bartlett (right) in 2018. Picture: Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images

If it hadn’t dawned on the Melbourne board or the AFL commission that they had gravely underestimated Bartlett as the bitter boardroom saga rolled into a third season in January, it should have when Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie stood up in federal parliament in March and dropped a bomb on the game’s already contentious illicit drugs policy.

Suddenly, the Bartlett story had broken the AFL’s containment lines, where house-trained journalists, broadcasters and club figures with their snouts buried deep in football’s trough form a Praetorian Guard around the industry.

Anti-doping world luminaries, including Dick Pound – who likened the AFL’s secret drug testing practices to East Germany’s notorious state-run programs of the 1970s – and Travis Tygart, have savaged the goings on amid a Sport Integrity Australia investigation.

Bartlett might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but those without red, blue and rose-coloured glasses should admire his refusal to yield to the AFL machine.

Bartlett and Demons coach Simon Goodwin in 2017. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Media

The view of those who removed him was probably that Bartlett would be drowned by football’s relentless methods, racking up legal debts so vast that he would have no choice but to walk away.

Yet Bartlett persisted and, what began as an internal Melbourne dispute, soon spiralled into a far broader battle surrounding the AFL’s stance on illegal drugs.

In their wildest dreams, those who condoned the boardroom coup in which Kate Roffey replaced Bartlett would not have envisaged how deep the crisis would plunge, nor the public unpeeling of the cultural issues that are rife within the game.

Fate also played its part when Demons high-flyer Joel Smith tested positive to cocaine following a match at the MCG on the eve of last year’s finals series.

Melbourne chief executive Gary Pert’s subsequent performance on SEN radio regarding Smith and Clayton Oliver’s troubles – in which he declared the club’s culture “the best I’ve seen in 40 years” — went straight into the self-immolation hall of fame.

Smith has since been slapped with additional drug trafficking charges by SIA investigators, dragging in at least four teammates and shining a further light on the drugs scourge that Bartlett had declared he was so desperate to fix.

The catch cry of those still clinging to the hope that the AFL’s illicit drugs policy will survive is that it supposedly “saves lives”.

Bartlett has refused to back down in his legal fight against the Demons. Photo: Trevor Collens

But tell that to the family of late Fremantle and Melbourne player Harley Balic, whose tragic story has emerged in recent weeks off the back of Mr Wilkie’s parliamentary intervention.

Those within the game aware of the full Balic tale will be hoping it never comes to light.

At its core, the AFL drugs code permits young men to take drugs repeatedly and without penalty — inevitably leading to addiction and for some — jail and even death.

A damning statement handed to SIA by Mr Wilkie penned by long-time Demons doctor Zeeshan Arain is difficult for Melbourne and the AFL to explain away, despite backroom attempts.

The truth is that the AFL’s IDP and its so-called “medical model” will be dismantled – either voluntarily or at the hands of SIA, which is conducting a full investigation into the regime, “off the books” tests and all.

It’s also hard to see a scenario in which the AFL and Melbourne do not change course with Bartlett and open up the cheque book to stop the bleeding.

What more disturbing revelations must emerge before they wake up to themselves?

Roffey and Pert have been badly damaged by the saga that has cost their club a small fortune in legal fees and a mountain of credibility.

Both should be relieved of their positions.

AFL commission chairman Richard Goyder failed to properly heed Bartlett’s warnings in a crisis meeting held just weeks before his assassination.

“My instinct is this matter is a very serious matter needing serious attention and a rapid response,” Goyder told the meeting.

Yet within weeks it was Bartlett who was gone and the game’s highest ranked official sat back and watched it all unfold.

Andrew Dillon and his most senior media lieutenant Brian Walsh have also seriously misjudged the crisis. As did Gillon McLachlan.

All that’s left now is the reckoning.

Originally published as Inside story: How footy lost its war with former Melbourne president Glen Bartlett