Ugly Lachie Whitfield saga threatens AFL’s feel-good week before finals

THE Lachie Whitfield saga threatens to be a major finals distraction which could have been avoided if the AFL stuck to running a football competition, writes RICHARD HINDS.

The AFL had its dream all-Sydney final. Now it would use its pre-finals bye to showcase this wonderful occasion, promote the new women’s league and to shine an even brighter spotlight on its All-Australian team and Rising Star award.

Yes, the week off had handed centre stage to the Storm in Melbourne. Otherwise it seemed there was nothing the publicity obsessed AFL could do wrong as it used the week off to relentlessly promote its “product’’.

Then — kaboom! — revelations the AFL was investigating allegations former GWS officials had hidden Giants’ star Lachie Whitfield from drug testers last season.

Lachie Whitfield says his ex-girlfriend Sammi Nowland dobbed him in.

Suddenly the prolonged feel-good vibe AFL boss Gillon McLachlan used to justify the controversial bye was replaced by an ugly controversy. One that threatens to distract the Giants on the eve of the finals and has created internal chaos at competition heavyweight Collingwood.

Instead of women with newly inked professional contracts proving Australian Rules was a girls’ game, the AFL’s “feel good’’ week has been about a woman scorned. Whitfield’s ex-girlfriend being cast — perhaps unfairly — as the “whistleblower’’ whose text message incriminated the young Giant.

So at the AFL’s harbourside finals launch, instead of talking about the wonderful opportunity provided by the derby final Giants officials were forced to defend Whitfield and their club’s internal investigation.

In Melbourne the ramifications for Collingwood president Eddie McGuire, who was about to sideline the respected football manager Neil Balme with Graeme “Gubby’’ Allan — one of the former Giants officials alleged to have concealed Whitfield — were front and centre. With Balme expected to leave and Allan’s status uncertain, the Magpies might have simultaneously employed two football bosses and end up with neither.

Former GWS Giants football manager Graeme Allan with the team after a win.

All of which could have been avoided if the AFL’s obsession with “controlling the message’’ did not extend beyond the promotional banners it has hung around the CBD.

On the surface, the Whitfield story is about an allegedly panicked player being given the misguided counsel by both an ex-partner and officials whose attempts to protect him have only landed him in far greater trouble.

But at the heart of the story is the AFL’s controversial, and oft-exposed, three-strike illicit drugs policy. The in-house testing regimen that is supposed to ensure players’ best interests are protected. But which, as figures showing a substantial rise in the out-of-season use of illicit drugs suggest, has proven ineffectual.

The irony of the Whitfield situation is that if he did take an illicit substance — the club says he denies doing so — he could have simply self-reported the matter and no one outside a handful of AFL officials and club medical staff would be the wiser.

This lenient approach is justified because AFL players voluntarily submit to out-of-season testing, whereas athletes bound only by the WADA code don’t suffer a similar imposition.

Lachie Whitfield during GWS Giants training this week. Picture: Mark Evans

The AFL claims that counselling, rather than punishment, is best for first and even second-time offenders. The more sceptical observers believe the AFL is happy to conceal the results to minimise the damaging impression illicit drug-use is as rampant among its highly exposed players and it is their non-headline-attracting friends.

Either way, the fact the AFL has taken 13 months to investigate the Whitfield case and handballed the file back and forth with ASADA suggests it is unable to administer the messy anti-drugs regimen it has created.

There is speculation the AFL will reduce the number of strikes before suspension to two or even take the nuclear option of punishing players who record a single positive test.

The more obvious conclusion is that the AFL should stick to running and promoting a football competition and leave the drug testing to the experts.