AFL Brownlow betting scandal: How uni students Adam and Nick Voglis exposed the biggest AFL story of the year
It took seven weeks before news of the Brownlow betting bombshell really exploded. So was the TikTok post in grand final week when the integrity investigation actually got rolling?
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These are the university students who used TikTok and Instagram to expose one of the biggest AFL scandals of the year – while sitting in their family study dressed in black hoodies.
Football tragics Adam and Nick Voglis dropped bombshell allegations relating to this year’s Brownlow Medal in a 20-second video on their social media page, Back to the Bench.
They published the claims back in grand final week, almost seven weeks before detectives arrested AFL umpire Michael Pell on November 14, along with three other men, for allegedly corrupting betting outcomes on the Brownlow.
“Breaking news coming out today that an AFL umpire, whose name we cannot disclose just yet, has been caught betting on AFL games during the 2022 season,” Nick, 21, said as his twin held the tripod way back in September.
“He got caught betting on Brody Mihocek to get three votes on Queen’s Birthday and also Dan Hannebery to get three votes on his final game.
“Both these outcomes happened and more will be released soon.”
The Herald Sun is not suggesting Pell placed bets on those matches.
The Victoria Police investigation is understood to centre on Pell allegedly leaking Brownlow Medal votes.
The Voglis boys created Back to the Bench in 2020, along with Marcellin mate Joseph Ayoub. They had sourced the Brownlow allegations within days of Carlton captain Patrick Cripps winning the medal count.
It was scandalous stuff, yet it went largely unsighted.
“As soon as we got the information it was, ‘Let’s hurry up and get it out’. We didn’t know how quickly this story was going to circulate,” Adam Voglis said on Tuesday.
“We broke it back in September, that was pretty big. There was a bit of confusion and hesitation from the public. Like, is this true? Is it crap? Is it made up?
“But when it actually hit the media that’s when it came to the surface and we realised we hit the jackpot. It was pretty exciting.
“We’re not really known for our story-breaking. We don’t really get much intel … we’re normally just talking about games, interviewing fans, that sort of thing.”
WATCH THE VIDEO IN THE PLAYER ABOVE
How did they get the scoop?
“Oh, look, I know of someone who told me the story,” Adam, who works as a finance clerk and at Woolworths, said.
“I better not reveal at this stage, but it’s someone I know. We had a few discussions on the phone and I bumped into him and it came to light.”
The fact the boys hit the button in grand final week perhaps suggests how quickly the integrity investigation got rolling.
And on November 15 the Herald Sun reported that two games where Pell was an emergency umpire were at the centre of the voting leak scandal — the same matches Back to the Bench flagged in September.
Victoria Police has since widened its investigation and is now examining matches from 2021, where Pell, 32, was an emergency umpire.
No charges have been laid yet.
Do the Back to the Bench boys have any mail on where the story goes next?
“To be honest, we haven’t heard much else since. I guess it’s in the hands of the investigators now,” Adam said.
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