The Tackle: Eddie McGuire’s language in recent weeks has made an anxious situation even worse
Eddie McGuire is front and square in the battle to get football back, in whatever shape or form. But not everything he’s saying is helping an already trying situation, writes Mark Robinson.
Mark Robinson
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We are seeing peak Eddie McGuire.
He is part combative, passionate and combustible.
He is also being a bully.
In a period where anxiety and consternation is growing each day in isolation for most of us, and where footballers wonder when and how their sport will start again, McGuire is in his element.
“This has been a nuclear bomb going off for the AFL,’’ he said at the outset.
He’s a big, booming voice in a very big industry, but not all of his offerings are helpful right now.
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In the past two weeks his language has been emotive, dismissive and carried more than a tinge of fearmongering.
No one needs it, although McGuire would argue his heart is in the right place.
Last Wednesday night on Footy Classified, McGuire took aim at AFL players.
Like they needed it.
The top bracket of players have taken a 50 per cent pay cut.
It will become 70 per cent if football doesn’t return on May 31.
Rookies and first, second and third-year players are in isolation counting their money.
Last year’s Grand Final hero Marlion Pickett, for example, is in his home state of Western Australia with his wife and four kids. Guessing, but he’d earn about $80,000.
Take $30,000 off that because of the cuts and life is somewhat desperate.
Pickett might want to join the proposed hubs when the AFL introduces them to help retrieve the season. And he might not.
His family might be more important than football at this stage of his life. If so he wouldn’t be the only player reticent about being locked down for six weeks. If family joins them well and good.
But what if Pickett says no? Or Trent Cotchin. Or Jack Riewoldt. Or Patrick Dangerfield?
According to McGuire, they could start a mutiny at their football clubs.
Yes, a mutiny.
“As a conscientious objector, that’s fair enough, you don’t have to go. I don’t know if you get paid, but you don’t have to go,’’ McGuire said.
But if a player said no?
“I would think that would cause an absolute mutiny in a football club because there’s a lot of players who aren’t getting paid $750,000 that need to eat. And there’s a lot of people out there at the moment who would do anything for a job,’’ McGuire said
Is he shaming to players to play?
It’s always intriguing when McGuire speaks because we have to ascertain what hat he’s wearing.
There’s no doubting his love of the game, but is it the Collingwood president’s hat? His commentators hat? His media mogul’s hat? Or his recently bestowed AFL war cabinet hat?’
Not for the first time, he is conflicted.
In fact, everyone working in football is conflicted to some degree because we all want and need football to return.
Everyone has taken a hit financially, including the media, and McGuire’s enormous media company wouldn’t have been spared, nor of course has his football club.
Unquestionably, McGuire needs football to return.
But bullying players with talk of a mutiny is ridiculous and unfair in this climate of despair.
The players need support, not threats.
So do the hundreds of thousands of club members.
Before his mutiny call on April 15, two weeks previous on April 1 – April fool’s Day – McGuire played a sort of guilt trip on members.
It came as McGuire and sports host Tony Jones traded words on the nightly news, which was part serious and probably part showmanship.
Asked if members in need could get their membership money back, McGuire intimated yes but refused to say yes.
Jones pressed on.
McGuire lit up: ‘’What we don’t want to do is have a run on clubs because the membership is keeping us alive at the moment.’’
He added: ‘’You’re not listening to me Tony. You’re trying to get a headline, and this is what we don’t need at the moment.’’
Run on clubs hey? If a club member has paid $1500 for a season ticket and they can’t go to games, and he’s lost his job, and the wife has lost her job, where is the $1500 best spent — at the football club or to feed the family and pay bills?
Indeed, headlines are following McGuire.
Commentator and colleague Gerard Whateley said of the proposed hubs: “I’m absolutely resolute on this now, that proposition is unreasonable, it is inappropriate and it would be desperate. You wouldn’t have to go too far to conclude that it is also immoral.’’
It was an opinion which had friends, but one of them wasn’t McGuire.
Under the headline ‘McGuire slams Whateley’ (news.com.au), McGuire said: “Settle down Gerard. Fair dinkum, calm down mate. It is simply this, if we get to a situation where this would be a good idea, then it’s a good idea.’’
Because Whateley had a contrary view, McGuire went on the attack.
Players chairman Dangerfield, AFLPA boss Paul Marsh, Giants chairman Tony Shepherd and Hawthorn chief executive Justin Reeves have also raised concerns about the hub proposal, and the first two certainly carry more weight than the latter two, and Whateley.
And only four days ago, Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Dr Brett Sutton said of the potential hubs: ‘’It is a risk.’’
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And his opinion carries more weight than everyone.
All of them have the right to be concerned and, in Whateley’s case, not be ridiculed.
AFL boss Gillon McLachlan has been calm amid the storm and his leadership has been applauded.
In a smart move, he quickly invited four heavyweight presidents on to its war cabinet -McGuire, Jeff Kennett, Peter Gordon and Andrew Pridham.
They are intelligent gentlemen with a deep knowledge at club level but, this may be cynical, it’s more manageable for the AFL to have such strong voices on the inside than having them on the outside.
In other words, they’d stop throwing rocks from the outside. The problem is McGuire is now throwing rocks from the inside.
McGuire’s position is he’s unwaveringly passionate which can lend itself to being angry at a time when calm, reasonable discussion is necessary.
Indeed, McGuire is mostly doing exactly that on his morning radio program on Triple M.
His support for the community, offering advice and goodwill, has been well received, as it should be for a man in such a powerful position and who’s devotion to the state of Victoria is unquestioned.
His football offerings at the moment, however, are causing more anxiety than goodwill.
Aren’t we all supposed to be in this together?