AFL 2023: Former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire’s extortion fears as captain Darcy Moore says they will wrap their arms around Jack Ginnivan
What happens if ‘criminal elements’ get their hands on videos like the one of Jack Ginnivan in a toilet cubicle? Eddie McGuire is worried – and says something must change.
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Former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire fears videos of AFL players using illicit drugs could fall into the hands of “criminal elements” to extort money or manipulate betting unless tweaks are made to the league’s drugs code.
Following Magpie Jack Ginnivan’s ban for using an illicit substance after he was filmed in a Torquay hotel toilet cubicle, McGuire said such videos had become a “commodity” and could become a “bounty” on players’ heads.
Ginnivan was suspended for rounds one and two of the premiership season and received a suspended $5000 fine after vision emerged of him with an illicit substance.
The Magpie later admitted to illicit substance use to the AFL’s integrity unit.
Ginnivan’s situation came after Western Bulldogs star Bailey Smith last year admitted to illicit drug use, for which he received a two-match suspension, after images emerged of him with a bag of white powder.
Suggesting the AFL was on a “slippery dip” to trouble in the modern age of omnipresent camera phones, McGuire feared compromising vision could be used to extort players ahead of big games or illegally influence betting.
“There is no doubt that what we don’t want is to set a bounty on people,” McGuire said.
“If you make a currency of these types of vision, whether you are selling it to the media or worse, to criminal elements, there is that opportunity.
“Let’s say, for example, somebody was able to accumulate two or three or four players on video or players going into a big game.
“It’s one thing selling it to the media, it’s another thing, if you are a player and you know you are going to get publicly shamed, humiliated, cop financial costs and all the rest of it, it wouldn’t be a hard thing (for people) to extort money or influence onto a player and manipulate betting patterns and all sorts of different things like this.
“I just think that making it a bounty on a player, whether that means you get an exclusive interview or you get money or you get control of them, is a slippery dip to a bad place.”
While McGuire was supportive of the AFL’s illicit drugs policy as a medical model, he felt tweaks needed to be made to avoid rogue vision being used as currency.
He said it was time the league should stop suspending players “just because they’ve had their photo taken” and treat such cases in the same way as self-reporting.
“The AFL drug policy works as a medical policy rather than a punitive policy,” McGuire said.
“I think that they should just (treat) this type of thing the same way as if you self-report.
“If you are caught you get a strike and anonymity - well in this case you probably still won’t get anonymity - but it should be treated the same way. You shouldn’t get a bigger suspension because somebody has taken an illegal photo of you.
“If we are serious that it’s all about mental health and health then it should all be the same, take the heat out of it and I think that will head off unintended consequences down the track.
“I just think if we are going to have the drug policy, which I think is a good one, then it should be all about rehabilitation and medical support whether you are found by the drug testers, you self-report or somebody takes a photo of you.
“There are hundreds of players who have either self-reported or tested positive that no one knows about and people are able to help them in the right way.
“We’ve now seen three instances of this (Ginnivan, Smith and Shane Mumford captured on vision) and we’ve had time to look at it and I think that this is now on a slippery dip.
“Let’s just knock it on the head, it’s an adjustment that needs to be looked at …. don’t forget when this drug code came into being it was four or five years before phones had cameras.”
While he did not want to specifically speak about the situation Ginnivan found himself in, McGuire said no player deserved to have their privacy “violated” in a toilet cubicle.
“I don’t think anybody should get their (privacy) violated like that,” McGuire said.
“It shouldn’t matter if you are the Queen of England, you shouldn’t be photographed in a toilet cubicle.
“The easy answer to all of this is don’t take drugs and certainly don’t do it in a public place, there is the easy answer.
“But the point is, we shouldn’t be making ‘gotcha’ situations …. it just becomes ridiculous.”
Reason why Ginnivan didn’t train as Moore weighs in
- Chris Cavanagh
Collingwood forward Jack Ginnivan has returned to the club, vowing he will work hard to regain “trust” after confessing to taking illicit drugs over the weekend.
Ginnivan briefly spoke to waiting media upon his arrival at Olympic Park on Monday morning, where he again apologised for his actions during a Magpies training camp in late January.
The 20-year-old admitted on Saturday to using an illicit substance in a toilet cubicle at the Torquay Hotel after video of the incident was obtained by media and was passed on to the AFL Integrity Unit last week.
“I obviously spoke on Saturday so don’t have much to say apart from everyone knows that I’m pretty sorry and remorseful for the actions that I did and I’m ready to get to work today and earn the trust back of the group,” Ginnivan said.
Ginnivan did not join teammates for training on Monday morning, being escorted to his car just 15 minutes after players hit the track.
He was sporting bandaging on his left knee and had a heavy limp as he made his way around the ground.
Ginnivan had hurt the knee during Collingwood’s intra-club practice match on Friday night.
Newly appointed Collingwood captain Darcy Moore also spoke on his arrival to the club on Monday morning, saying he was “pretty disappointed” in Ginnivan’s actions but adding that the club would wrap its arms around the young player.
“We just want the Jack that we know and love to still be around,” Moore said.
“He’s a really bubbly, really popular teammate. He’s someone who really lights up the locker room. So we really want to see that and we just want to look after his wellbeing. This is obviously an error and a mistake that he’s made and we’re not interested in shaming him going forward. We want to support him and make sure he feels empowered to get back into his training, recover from this niggle that he’s got and come back in the team and be a valued member. He’s a popular team man, he’s a popular player. The fans love him. So I’m sure he’s going to learn from this and move forward.”
Moore said Ginnivan had “fallen short of the standards” that Collingwood players expected for themselves and denied there was a wider drugs problem at the Magpies.
“I believe there’s no issue,” Moore said.
“We have over 90 male and female athletes at this club, the large majority of whom take their jobs really seriously and make great decisions. But having said that, we don’t operate in a vacuum. We’re human beings and people make errors of judgement and that’s something that Jack’s done in this instance.”
The AFL’s current Illicit Drugs Policy is currently being reviewed, with Moore saying he was interested to see the results of that review.
“I think it clearly plays an important role in minimising harm around the league, in terms of flagging players who are at risk of making mistakes around drug use,” Moore said of the current policy.
“It provides invaluable unidentified data around the prevalence of drug use to the league and to the medical experts in order to keep tabs on how big of an issue this is. I think the challenging part of it is when things become public. Because around a welfare and a harm minimisation model, not everything is going to be public and when it does it can create a little bit of grey area.
“Players obviously don’t operate in a vacuum and are human beings and make mistakes. We know with the consumption of alcohol, that impairs judgement. So you’d be crazy to think there’s no players around the league who use drugs from time to time. It certainly exists. In terms of how widespread it is, I’m really not in a position to say considering I don’t have all the data.”
Ginnivan has been suspended by the AFL for Collingwood’s two pre-season matches, as well as the first two matches of the home-and-away season.
He was also slapped with a $5000 suspended fine.
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