Melbourne Demons crisis: AFL staff and reporters set for court date with Glen Bartlett

How will things play out in court when experienced QCs start asking questions about what was said in meetings between the league CEO and Demons powerbrokers?

Football administrators and Supreme Court witness boxes don’t mix.

Twice during the Essendon drugs fiasco, moves to subpoena or cross-examine senior AFL officials (by lawyers for Dr Bruce Reid and Dean “The Weapon” Robinson) resulted in swift out-of-court settlements and the dropping of proceedings like a hot potato.

Footy prefers to resolve its dirtiest integrity disputes in-house, thus avoiding the answering of uncomfortable questions under oath, the filing of damaging affidavits or the discovery of incriminating documents.

The latest AFL imbroglio headed for the courts surrounds the sudden exit of former Melbourne president Glen Bartlett.

In a 2021 season that would see the club go on to win a drought-breaking premiership, Bartlett (lured to take charge of the Dees in 2013 by former AFL boss Andrew Demetriou and his deputy Gillon McLachlan in the wake of the tanking saga) went from being re-elected unopposed in March to “unanimously” deposed by his fellow board members by April.

Glen Bartlett and Simon Goodwin. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

The reasons behind his murky departure are now at the centre of a defamation action Bartlett has brought against two AFL journalists from The Age and Nine Entertainment, Jake Niall and Caroline Wilson.

And it’s a fair bet several senior Melbourne officials and coaches and at least two AFL supremos will be called to give evidence about the goings on at the club during the tumultuous summer of 2020-21.

Bartlett gave a hint of things to come via an extraordinary press release this month in which he claimed that he had stood down after being thwarted in his fight to keep Melbourne free of “workplace bullying, gambling, harassment and illegal drugs”.

The ex-Demons boss alleged he and his partner had since been subjected to “threats, deceitful conduct and a public campaign to discredit us”.

To those on the outside, they were explosive revelations.

“Did you see the statement that was put out by the former Melbourne president? It is extraordinary,” Adelaide breakfast radio host David Penberthy asked last week.

“Threatening defamation against the entire world, talking about the culture that he was trying to change within the club, talking about how he has had personal threats, talking about how he and his wife have lived in fear - talking about drugs at the club, talking about gambling problems at the club.

“Now, if that was the Adelaide Football Club … the Victorian media would have 300 journos covering it - (but) you can get away with blue murder if you are in the Victorian bubble.”

He’s not wrong.

When details emerged this month of a crisis meeting held last February between McLachlan, AFL commission chairman Richard Goyder, Bartlett and Melbourne vice-president Mohan Jesudason, some media figures seemed more concerned about who had “taped” it than the actual content of the discussion.

Caroline Wilson with Jimmy Bartel.

But a Queen’s Counsel in a defamation hearing might be more inclined to ask why McLachlan had offered during the meeting to read the riot act to Demons chief executive Gary Pert amid concerns he would “undermine” an investigation into the behaviour of senior coach Simon Goodwin?

Or what McLachlan meant when he said he had told Pert prior to Christmas that this “is the tip of the iceberg”?

Or why he said that if Goodwin was doing something as “obvious and stupid as this … then God knows what else is happening”?

Or why McLachlan had told Pert that it was the “talk of the town”?

What exactly had the AFL boss been hearing that summer and why did it culminate in a meeting between the club and the game’s two most powerful officials?

Goyder told the meeting that if he was the president he would not be waiting any longer to confront Goodwin, describing the matter as “very serious” and “needing serious attention and a rapid response”.

It is unclear what steps, if any, the AFL and its integrity unit took after the meeting.

But Kate Roffey, the board member who replaced Bartlett as Demons president in Round 6 last year, has since declared that she has “no idea” why the AFL was meeting with the club and didn’t even know it had taken place “until I read it in the paper”.

She has previously insisted that Bartlett’s exit was the result of months of “succession planning” - and yet last week, in response to his lengthy statement, it was apparently a “unanimous” decision of the board to ask him to resign - just a month after he had been re-elected by the same directors unopposed.

Kate Roffey and Melbourne legend Ron Barassi. Photo by Michael Klein

Melbourne football boss Alan Richardson says the story is “starting to get a little bit laughable”, while Goodwin, who has denied he had any behavioural issues, is urging people to “join the dots and work out where it’s coming from”.

Internal club emails show Bartlett - a workplace lawyer and OH&S specialist - was pushing for the introduction of illicit drug testing for all club leaders on the eve of the 2021 season, a move Pert warned would trigger a mass exodus of staff.

In the end, it was Bartlett and the club’s long-time doctor Zeeshan Arain who were shown the door but plenty of questions are left hanging - and unless another hasty settlement is reached on the Supreme Court steps all involved could soon be asked to pick up a bible and answer them.

A directions hearing is set for July 21.

Originally published as Melbourne Demons crisis: AFL staff and reporters set for court date with Glen Bartlett