Four AFL clubs hit with fines totalling $185,000 for COVID breaches
Eddie McGuire has taken a tough stance on families of AFL players who break COVID restrictions while in footy hubs after four clubs were fined for breaches including an Instagram post by the wife of Richmond captain Trent Cotchin.
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Eddie McGuire says WAGS who break coronavirus rules while in footy hubs should be sent home.
And the Collingwood president believes they should pay fines handed down to clubs themselves.
The AFL has warned clubs they risk the loss of premiership points and draft picks after four clubs were fined for COVID breaches, including a Brooke Cotchin facial that cost the Tigers $20,000.
Hawthorn was hit with a $50,000 fine after players went searching for food at the SCG clash against Sydney.
Those three non-selected Hawks straying from a sanctioned corporate box in search of sustenance cost the club $25,000 given half of the fine was suspended.
Similarly, Richmond found out there was no such thing as a free Gold Coast facial after they were hit with a $45,000 fine ($25,000 suspended).
Carlton was also fined after a member of the club sent their children to grandparents living in Queensland, who took them to Seaworld.
McGuire said it was unfair for clubs to be held responsible for the behaviour of players’ wives and girlfriends.
“I think the people who breach the protocols should be fined personally, to be honest,” he said on Fox Footy.
“You can get to the clubs in due course, I think the AFL’s set it out, but I think it’s got to be a personal fine.”
McGuire said he fully supported the tough AFL stance to keep the season alive.
“I think the point Gill McLachlan made during the week is 100 per cent right — we make a rule to keep the game going. From here until the Grand Final, there’s still about $250 million worth to be left on the table if this ends. It’d be a disaster, imagine if we don’t get to finish off the finals series now.
“So he says here’s the rules, and the great Australian tradition, as we’re seeing through society at the moment is ‘OK, there’s a rule, but it doesn’t apply to me’. He’s saying, ‘Right, OK, have you got it now? It applies to everyone’.
“That rule book is not, ‘How do we get around every rule’, that’s the rule book you live by. And if you don’t like it, we’ll arrange for you to go home. I think that’s fair and reasonable.”
An Instagram post about that facial at the Esteem day spa was quickly deleted by Brooke Cotchin but cost the club $20,000, a small price to pay given her partner’s integral role in two AFL premierships.
She wrote in the post about how her skin was in “desperate need of love” and how she knew she was in the right place as soon as she walked through the doors.
North Melbourne and Carlton were also fined $45,000 ($20,000 suspended), as AFL legal boss Andrew Dillon laid down the law about COVID breaches.
Previously those WAGS did not even fall under the AFL’s rules and regulations but now clubs have been put on notice about the ramifications of further transgressions.
Dillon said clubs would be strictly responsible for anyone under their care as 410 WAGS and family members went into quarantine on the Gold Coast on Thursday.
A first offence will now draw a $50,000 fine ($25,000 suspended) with $25,000 in the club’s soft cap.
A second offence will draw up to a $75,000 fine (with $100,000 included in the soft cap), while a third or subsequent breach gives the AFL total discretion but punishment could include “a monetary sanction, loss of premiership points or loss of Draft picks”.
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Carlton apologised after a member of the club sent their children to grandparents, who took them to Seaworld without the permission of the family involved.
“This individual had sought support with childcare, which is approved within the AFL protocols. However, the activity undertaken by those caring for children is where we have let ourselves down, given this is where the opportunity to seek clarity should have been taken,” Blues chief executive Cain Liddle said.
Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett’s apology to the AFL laid bare the stakes involved for the code given the spread of COVID.
“We are incredibly disappointed that we have breached the AFL protocols. These protocols have been clearly outlined to all clubs and players, and we make no excuse for our breach,” he said.
“We expect much more of our players and the club, and we take full responsibility for the breach in question and accept the sanction which has been handed down.”
North Melbourne not only had text messages and emails from an AFL official approving a WAGS visit to the football last weekend but correspondence apologising for the communication break-down.
Yet they too accepted the $45,000 penalty from the league despite having grounds to take the issue further with AFL House.
“Although the club believed it was operating with the full approval of the AFL and strongly suggests a communication breakdown is at fault, it accepts the decision that’s been handed down,” the Kangaroos said in a statement.
Dillon told clubs they were all on notice after the breaches this week.
“Our primary focus, like everyone around the country, is to play our role in continuing to keep safe the communities in which we play. We know it is a privilege to be able to continue our competition which provides jobs for thousands of people around the country, and joy to millions of fans.” he said.
“The protocols are in place to not only protect players, officials, staff, and now their visiting families, but also the wider community in which we have been given the opportunity to train and play.
“We all have to modify our behaviours in order for the competition to continue in a safe manner.”
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AFL MORE LIKE AFLQ
- Jon Ralph
The AFL is yet to consider tighter restrictions to safeguard the league against the spread of COVID as the competition turns into a fully-fledged AFLQ.
Collingwood and Geelong will on Monday fly into Queensland hubs after Perth stints as Greater Western Sydney and Sydney Swans this week fled New South Wales for a temporary stop up north.
The league flew 410 AFL staff, wives and partners into the Gold Coast on Thursday in a delegation that includes 170 children.
Among the exodus were Richmond premiership star Bachar Houli and Carlton ruckman Matthew Kreuzer.
That group will be in quarantine at the Mercure Gold Coast for the next 14 days, given COVID tests, told to wear masks and not allowed to leave the resort.
But they can roam the resort for the next two weeks until released into high-performance hubs with their families.
As the Herald Sun revealed this week, football boss Steve Hocking and legal boss Andrew Dillon are among a group of AFL staffers who have now set up camp on the Gold Coast.
The AFL Grand Final and Brownlow Medal are now short odds to be held in Queensland this season.
The AFL will not host another game in Victoria this year and growing coronavirus numbers in Sydney mean no one can guarantee whether games will be played in that state.
But amid fears of potential community transmission in Queensland, the league is not yet considering locking players down in hubs.
The AFL’s priority is protecting players in those hubs as well as the Queensland community, which explains its hard-line stance on WAG COVID breaches.
In coming days Melbourne will fly out to stay in Adelaide, where it will play the Crows and then North Melbourne.
Hawthorn, Carlton, GWS and Sydney are also on their way to Perth in coming weeks to replace the Cats and Collingwood in Perth hubs.
The AFL will house two clubs in Cairns later in the schedule for three premiership games, which would see other teams flying in and out of far north Queensland.
Kreuzer, who injured his foot in the team’s opening round clash with Richmond in Round 1 and still has up to a month recovery remaining, will complete his 14-day hotel quarantine and then continue his rehabilitation in Queensland.
Houli and his wife, along with his three young children, will go into a separate quarantine for two weeks before joining the Tigers’ hub on the Gold Coast.
Collingwood president Eddie McGuire conceded several weeks ago that Steele Sidebottom’s four-week ban was effectively a message to state governments.
Collingwood believed it had grounds to appeal the decision but the greater good of state governments making a stand about biosecurity measures was too important a message.
EAGLE RAISES ‘CIVIL LIBERTIES’ FEARS
- Braden Quartermaine
West Coast veteran Will Schofield has questioned whether the AFL is infringing players’ “civil liberties” after introducing a ban on them entering each other’s rooms while in hubs.
The ban, which came into effect this week, is part of tighter coronavirus protocols.
It does not currently affect the Eagles, but they may have to travel to another interstate hub later in the season.
Schofield and teammate Oscar Allen, who co-host the club’s Coast to Coast podcast, said the rule could impact players’ mental health and force more of them to leave interstate hubs and return home during the season.
All 10 Victorian teams are currently based in interstate hubs, with Carlton, Hawthorn, Geelong and Collingwood in Perth ahead of this weekend’s triple-header at Optus Stadium.
“Stopping them from going to rooms is just a mental hindrance. That’s borderline civil liberties type stuff,” Schofield said.
“You’re not allowed to leave your room. Not allowed to go to someone else’s room. It’s setting people up to fail, really.
“As soon as I read that, I felt like that’s too much. Yes, we want to be as safe as possible. Yes, we want to adhere to government guidelines.
“And I would think decisions should be being made from a medical point of view. I don’t see how that’s a medical decision.
“We still do train together. Guys in hubs are eating together every meal. They’re in elevators. They get on a bus together.”
Allen predicted players would simply congregate in larger groups at their hotels and resorts to get around the rule.
“I think what you’ll find is instead of two to three guys going to someone’s room to hang out and just play cards or chat shop, you’ll just have 44 blokes in the common games room together,” Allen said.
“So if your goal by doing this was to stop people hanging out, well it’s going to do the opposite effect.”
Schofield, who has not featured in the Eagles team since getting suspended after Round 4, said this season’s flag would be “one of the greatest premierships of all time”.
“You’re going to need some depth this year to win it. I think it will have an asterisk, but it will be all-time whoever wins this year,” he said.
“I know how it will play out on social media. Anyone who hasn’t won will be bagging the team that wins.
“But I guarantee you the team that wins, it will be one of the greatest premierships of all time.”
SAINTS’ EMOTIONAL FAREWELL LETTER
- Chris Cavanagh
St Kilda defender Nathan Brown has penned a heartfelt letter to teammates after leaving the club’s Noosa hub, saying he felt he had “deserted my brothers in the heat of the battle”.
Brown slipped away quietly to return home to Victoria this week, with his goodbye letter read out to the playing group by player welfare manager Tony Brown and later shared publicly by the Saints.
Brown wrote that facing his teammates to say goodbye in person would have “destroyed” him, but detailed his journey from joining the Saints in November 2016 through to what was planned to be his “farewell tour” this year.
“I didn’t want to be a champion or a matchwinner, I wanted something much simpler – the unconditional love and respect of my teammates,” Brown said.
“I hope I have earned that even in the eyes of just one guy.”
Brown said he joined the Saints after nine seasons with Collingwood as an “old vet” but was embraced “like a young fella” and believed he was leaving them in a better place as a club with “a new identity, player-made and player-owned”.
“It’s one of brotherhood, blood sweat and tears, freedom and love – pure footy at its essence,” Brown wrote.
“I know you feel it too that we are destined for something special down the track.
“As hard as it may get up here or into the future, please don’t give up and stay together.”
Brown had not played an AFL game this season and described the tail end of his career as a “tough 12 months”, his role as a husband and father now having to take priority over football.
The 31-year-old said his best advice to young players coming through was to “embrace everything you do, good or bad”.
“I believe life and footy go hand-in-hand; life is ultimately about a journey towards happiness,” Brown wrote.
“The beauty about happiness is that it comes in many forms and is completely tailored to you and only you.
“The most important part of this is the journey itself. Most people strive for happiness but become disheartened or frustrated when they don’t achieve things, feel like crap, things don’t go their way, or have no clue where they’re meant to be or where they’re meant to be going.
“But when these same people get to the end of their lives, they nearly always say they are so proud of who they are because of what they overcame in their life. They look back on all the hard things they went through and say I love those moments, I cherish those moments, those were the times I felt most alive, I had to fight for what I believed in and what I loved.”
Brown finishes his career on 183 games, including 53 for the Saints.
He was a premiership player for Collingwood – ironically against St Kilda – in 2010.
HOULI TO JOIN TIGERS, WAGS GET COVID TESTS
- Lauren Wood and Chris Cavanagh
Emma Hawkins and Mardi Dangerfield and their families will be part of two AFL-chartered flights that will leave Tullamarine on Thursday to transport around 400 people to the Gold Coast to begin their 14-day hotel quarantine before joining club hubs.
The Cats families will join opposition players — including Richmond star Bachar Houli and his family — and families of players and staff, including around 170 children on the flight, and will be housed at the Mercure Gold Coast Resort upon arrival to serve their government-mandated quarantine period.
St Kilda coach Brett Ratten’s family are understood to be among a large contingent of Saints family members travelling on the Thursday afternoon flights, along with skipper Jarryn Geary’s pregnant wife Emma – who is due to give birth in September – and their daughter Harriet, who will all shift further north to Noosa in a fortnight.
Some Carlton families will also make the journey, but no extra players.
In two Thursdays’ time, on August 13, the players’ and staff members’ family members will then be able to move to the club hubs which are spread across Queensland’s southeast.
Houli, 32, had remained in Melbourne to support his wife Rouba as they welcomed their third child and first son Mohammed earlier this month.
His mother, Yamama, was then diagnosed with COVID-19 and treated in intensive care, but her condition has since improved.
Houli, Rouba and all three of their children will make the trip.
“At this stage he will be on the plane on Thursday which is great,” coach Damien Hardwick said this week.
“He will go into the isolation hub for a couple of weeks and come out the other side and hopefully put his hand up to play which would be a real positive for us.”
The exercise is costing the AFL millions of dollars, but league boss Gillon McLachlan said earlier this month that accommodating families who wished to join their partners in the hubs was an important step to facilitate.
The Western Bulldogs were until this week housed at the now-quarantine hub but have since moved to Royal Pines just a few kilometres away.
While it is hoped he could rejoin the Cats at some stage, Geelong superstar Gary Ablett is not part of this travelling party as he remains in Victoria to support his family, training alongside former teammate Andrew Mackie.
Demi Duncan, wife of Geelong midfielder Mitch Duncan, revealed on Instagram on Wednesday that she would be travelling north to begin her quarantine with children Scarlett and Ollie before the team returns from Western Australia.
Hawthorn defender James Sicily admitted that hub life and the strict conditions imposed upon players and family were “incredibly difficult, but everyone’s going through the same thing”.
Stephanie Trengove, wife of Bulldog Jackson Trengove, said on Instagram that she was “doing good” but was “thankful for FaceTime” to stay in contact with family and friends.
“(We’re only allowed out for) exercise and essentials only unless you have pre-approval from the AFL,” she wrote.
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WAG WARNING: AFL HUB ‘NOT A HOLIDAY’
The AFL has been forced to remind Victorian clubs that their moves to Queensland hubs are “not a holiday”, amid claims that partners and families of players and staff are pushing boundaries on strict government protocols.
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan held a phone hook-up with club bosses and senior staff on Monday, after posts by families on social media raised eyebrows at league headquarters.
It was reinforced that under the AFL’s license, those in Queensland were there to either play, work or support their families and not there on holidays.
Even after serving 14-days quarantine once arriving in Queensland, those moved through the closed Queensland borders by the AFL are restricted in their movements.
They are allowed to go for a walk, get takeaway coffee and food and go to the beach for a swim or a surf.
However, sun baking at the beach, eating at restaurants and going to theme parks are among the activities that are banned.
Collingwood president Eddie McGuire said he understood the children of a player who had family in Queensland had been taken to a theme park by their grandparents in a breach of protocols.
The player’s wife had dropped the children off for the day and was seemingly unaware they would be taken there.
“I understand that has caused a major drama up among the hubs there because the kids went with grandma and grandpa off to the theme park and then when they were picked up later in the afternoon the mum said, ‘Oh no, you shouldn’t have done that’,” McGuire said on Triple M radio.
“I think we need the rules really stipulated. As we know, everyone’s got a good excuse always for these things and sometimes it absolutely is and sometimes it’s a mistake, but we just can’t afford to have them. So I think the AFL will come out with pretty black-and-white rules coming into this next period because this is the key period. This next 20 days will decide whether or not we get through the season.”
The restrictions aim to minimise any risk in the face of Victoria’s COVID-19 outbreak and protect the Queensland community.
Tightened new protocols introduced last week now also restrict players and staff entering each other’s hotel rooms, with only meetings in common areas allowed as a further risk mitigation.
Any breaches of the government protocols by players, staff or families could land the AFL in hot water, with the season already in a precarious position.
Queensland is now the home base for all 10 Victorian clubs for the rest of the home-and-away season and the state is hosting six of the nine AFL games in Round 9 this week.
Tasmania last week slammed the door on the AFL’s plans to play games in Hobart in Rounds 11 and 12 next month, only increasing the reliance on Queensland.
Around 400 more family members of players and staff are set to head to Queensland on Thursday, where they will serve a 14-day quarantine before being reunited with their loved ones.
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Originally published as Four AFL clubs hit with fines totalling $185,000 for COVID breaches