Ex-Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson is entitled to exercise his legal options against his old club

Alastair Clarkson, Chris Fagan and Jason Burt have been treated appallingly and it’s time the club pays for the role it played in vilifying them.

Alastair Clarkson is now the Kangaroos head coach Picture: Getty

Hawthorn Football Club should pay, and pay dearly, for the role it played in the vilification of three former employees, Alastair Clarkson, Chris Fagan and Jason Burt.

As a Hawks fan it pains me to say that the family club is guilty of trashing its own reputation, causing enormous damage to the reputations of three men – including the most successful coach in the club’s history – and now facing a seven-figure payout.

Former president Jeff Kennett can say all he likes about Hawthorn acting in good faith and following “correct procedures” but that defence rings hollow when it was the Hawks board who selected Phil Egan – who has since been hit with more than 70 criminal charges – to complete the Binmada Review.

A report so defective that not a single non-Indigenous or non-Maori individual was interviewed.

Jeff Kennett can say all he likes about Hawthorn acting in good faith and following ‘correct procedures’. Picture: Getty

It was an activist report seemingly designed to find racism, whether it existed or not, and that’s precisely what it did.

The board members complicit in commissioning the deeply flawed “cultural safety review” that plunged the club into crisis must also depart the Hawks.

It’s astonishing that Ian Silk, the individual with the greatest culpability in selecting Egan, remains on the board.

This is also the man who campaigned for Hawthorn to dump their profitable poker machines, but then accepted a position to chair the Crown Melbourne board, a venue full of poker machines.

Hawthorn’s ineptness is not a defence.

It’s astonishing that Ian Silk is still on Hawthorn's board. Picture: Mitch Cameron

It’s little comfort to the three men whose good names were slandered far and wide that the club acted incompetently rather than with malice.

To add insult to injury, the ‘racism report’ was leaked to the media.

Hawthorn weren’t responsible for the leak but that shouldn’t exonerate them for the harm caused to Clarkson, Fagan and Burt, who all stepped down from their respective roles in the immediate aftermath. Clarkson stepped away from the game again mid-season after the stress of the saga became too much for him.

When I first wrote about this scandal more than a year ago the media was apoplectic with rage; veteran footy writers did not expect either Fagan or Clarkson to coach again at AFL level.

Clarkson stepped away from the game mid-season after the stress of the saga became too much for him. Picture: Getty

The accounts of supposed ‘human rights abuses’ and racist bullying at the club were uncritically accepted despite the obvious shortcomings of the report.

As I wrote in September 2022:

“Any notion of due process died the moment grievous allegations were published from anonymous accusers who remain protected while the accused are named, shamed and systematically destroyed by a race-baiting media ravenous for a couple of big scalps.”

By any measure the three men, particularly Clarkson, were treated appallingly.

They were deemed guilty by a vociferous media and denied the assumption of innocence.

The impact of being slandered as racist monsters was devastating.

The trio were repeatedly defamed as racists, bigots and bullies on social media. In some instances, that abuse extended to their daily lives.

Former Hawthorn player Jordan Lewis described how Clarkson was denied service at a petrol station after the allegations were made public.

Alastair Clarkson, Chris Fagan (right) and Justin Burt (not pictured) have been treated appallingly. Picture: Colleen Petch

The Hawks now face a million-dollar payout to Clarkson and Fagan, as well as possible payouts to former aggrieved Indigenous players, and then there’s the AFL’s Meade investigation into the club’s handling of the cultural safety review which could result in penalties.

Frankly, it’s more than a little absurd for the AFL to be threatening penalties given its role in the unedifying saga including the pressure exerted on Clarkson and Fagan to admit to some form of ‘cultural insensitivity’ to make the issue go away.

Clarkson is entitled to exercise his legal options against the club and one would imagine he has a strong case against several media pundits, too.

Leading industrial relations lawyer George Haros, who was integral in securing Israel Folau a multimillion-dollar payout from Rugby Australia, believes Clarkson has multiple avenues of actions including defamation proceedings.

Clarkson is entitled to exercise his legal options. Picture: Getty

Haros, a partner at Gadens, told the Herald Sun that Clarkson was entitled to compensation if Hawthorn mismanaged the review.

“Loss could extend beyond remuneration to loss of sponsorship income and also for pain and suffering,” he said.

If you listen to those with intimate knowledge of board machinations, Kennett himself was played.

They allege that the former Victorian premier was the primary target of this damaging fiasco.

The men whose reputations were trashed were collateral damage.

What hasn’t been written about is the quiet coup that occurred at the club with Labor-connected operatives from the “Hawks for Change” group taking control.

That’s a column for another day.