Gillon McLachlan responds to damning workplace bullying and harassment claims at AFL House
A group of women say they left AFL House feeling suicidal about the bullying and harassment they suffered. Now, Gillon McLachlan has responded.
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AFL boss Gillon McLachlan has offered to meet with a group of women who say they left league headquarters feeling suicidal about the bullying and harassment they suffered in the workplace.
McLachlan said he would also look into the “nuance” of non-disparagement clauses signed by the woman which they say prevents them from talking publicly about their “toxic” experiences at AFL House.
“We take pretty seriously our commitment to building a safe environment and a culture of inclusion and I feel we have lent pretty hard on this ... however, incidents happen … and if any woman has had a poor experience that doesn’t feel that they can talk, that is one too many and we will continue to take this seriously,” McLachlan said.
“We will continue to try and be better.”
Asked by 3AW’s Neil Mitchell if he was prepared to meet with women who felt they had been silenced, McLachlan said: “Of course”.
But one victim, who says she was forced out of the league soon after being sexually assaulted at a 2017 work function, said McLachlan was the last person she was prepared to talk to about her experiences working at AFL headquarters.
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“Why would I meet with Gill now just to have my concerns quashed all over again? There is nothing Gill can say that will undo any of this,” she said.
“We have struggled for years, so it’s a little late.
“Gill’s senior staff are responsible for the systematic bullying and dismissal of women, who lose their jobs and career paths. Gill either knows about it and doesn’t care or doesn’t know about it at all. Both possibilities are equally as terrifying.”
Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett has been in contact with two women who worked at AFL House and has vowed to raise the issue with AFL commission chairman Richard Goyder.
Richmond president Peggy O’Neal told ABC radio she was concerned by the reports.
“I am and I think more so if reports like that were coming out of my club, I would want to get to the bottom of it. I would want to know how it was not made public or wasn’t as transparent,” O’Neal said.
“I think it is a concern. I don’t have any of the facts … but it’s a terrible concern in a time when we want the sport to be open and welcoming to everyone that there are women who allegedly have been treated poorly and if I were the AFL Commission I would want to get to it as quickly as possible.”
The women who say they endured bullying and harassment at AFL House say they signed exit documents preventing them from ever detailing their experiences.
Asked if he was investigating the claims, McLachlan told 3AW: “Well, I have gone and asked, you know, to the extent that it’s an investigation, I’ve got every file and every allegation … and we don’t do NDA’s, I have no knowledge of NDA’s … and we don’t use things to try and silence victims or complainants. We take them all seriously.
“I have gone back since my time as chief executive to say that.
“Now, what is also referred to Neil is these standard, you know, when people leave the organisation, which is hundreds, who leave through various means, there is standard confidentiality clauses and non-disparagement clauses like there are in all organisations.
“And if they are in some way, even if (it’s) people who have been a complainant and later on feel there are constraints about talking about their experiences working at the AFL, they shouldn’t be and we’ll look at the nuance of those agreements …
“Our environment has changed and improved, as it does in every organisation, year on year. We engage and see our people pretty regularly and they tell us it is generally a great place to work.”
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Kennett: AFL’s big F for ‘bullying, treatment of women’
- Scott Gullan
Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett has called for an urgent review into the AFL’s administration saying it was a “law unto themselves”.He said the league needed to be held accountable for its “appalling” treatment of many female employees over the years.Speaking at the launch of The Boys‘ Club, a new book written by Herald Sun journalist Michael Warner which exposes the disturbing underbelly of the AFL, Kennett urged all of his fellow club leaders to read the startling revelations in the book.
“The contents of this book are confronting and cannot be ignored by the AFL Commission and club presidents,” Kennett said.
“This book lists a whole range of failures, there are conflicts of interest within the Commission and within the administration.
“There are endless examples of bullying, there are inconsistent applications of the AFL‘s policies, there is a lack of accountability.
“But perhaps worst of all is the appalling treatment of many female employees over many years and because the AFL answers to no-one, it is very much a law unto itself.
“This book, in my opinion, should be read by every AFL president and chairperson, by every CEO as an example of how not to do things, of how not to run a business.”
The book investigates up to a dozen complaints by female employees about bullying and other disturbing activity which was quickly swept under the carpet.
Kennett said former AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou’s embarrassing performance at the recent Royal Commission into Crown, of which he was a director, gave an insight into the troubled organisation.
“The operations of the AFL would fail any independent test of its operations based on the expectations being placed on any private sector company,” he said.
“So it’s no wonder that Andrew Demetriou was so completely at a loss before the Royal Commission into Crown as a director because his whole time as CEO of the AFL where he oversaw and drove bullying and a failure of accountability meant that he had no understanding of the proper exercise of corporate governance.
“The Commission must address the implications within this work, presidents and chairmen must urgently review the operations and the appropriateness of both the Commission members and the AFL administration.”
The Boys’ Club, which tracks the rise of the modern AFL administration, their web of connections and the scandals that have rocked the game, also reveals:
Demetriou and former West Coast president Dalton Gooding were business associates at the height of the illicit drugs crisis that engulfed the club in the mid-2000s.
AFL staff sought to undermine Australia’s $44 million taxpayer-funded bid to host the FIFA soccer World Cup.
Veteran AFL commissioner Bill Kelty tried repeatedly (but unsuccessfully) to convince the league that “there was a very good case for the separation of powers” in dealing with major integrity investigations such as the Melbourne tanking affair and Essendon supplements saga.
Taxation experts are questioning the AFL’s status as a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organisation.
Long-time Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon remains “bewildered and angered” at the AFL investigation into claims brothers Daniel and Michael Talia shared game-sensitive information before the 2015 Dogs-Adelaide Crows elimination final.
Top Melbourne silk David Galbally QC raised the ire of AFL commissioners after complaining about “the one-sided way” a hearing was being conducted into salary cap cheating offences committed by the Adelaide Crows in relation to Kurt Tippett’s contract in 2012.
The Boys’ Club by Michael Warner, out Wednesday (Hachette, $33)
Ex-AFL boss’s hidden Eagles conflict revealed
By Sam Landsberger
Ex-AFL boss Andrew Demetriou and former West Coast president Dalton Gooding were business associates at the height of the illicit drugs crisis that engulfed the club in the mid-2000s.
Company records reveal Demetriou and Gooding were directors of a false teeth export company at the time the AFL was investigating the Eagles over the drugs scandal that cast a shadow over the club’s 2006 premiership.
The conflict of interest is detailed in a new book, The Boys’ Club, written by News Corp journalist Michael Warner.
Gooding confirms his business links with Demetriou but insists the club was not treated favourably during the saga.
“I can say categorically and absolutely that we were given no special treatment by the AFL,” Gooding says.
“We were very much left on our own by the AFL executive to deal with the drug issue in 2006 and 2007.
“We knew that there were problems at other clubs, but we, as a board, decided not to point the finger and just get on and try and fix the problem.”
West Coast was never punished over the drugs-fuelled crisis which infected the Perth-based power club, but a secret AFL report obtained by the Herald Sun in 2017 laid bare a decade of rampant illicit drug use by Eagles stars and the league’s attempts to cover it up.
The company records reveal Demetriou had been a director and shareholder of the Ruthinium Group Pty Ltd since June 1991 and Gooding since April 1995.
The Boys’ Club, tracking the rise of the modern AFL administration, their web of connections and the scandals that have rocked the game, also reveals:
AFL staff sought to undermine Australia’s $44 million taxpayer-funded bid to host the FIFA soccer World Cup.
VETERAN AFL commissioner Bill Kelty tried repeatedly (but unsuccessfully) to convince the league that “there was a very good case for the separation of powers” in dealing with major integrity investigations such as the Melbourne tanking affair and Essendon supplements saga.
TAXATION experts are questioning the AFL’s status as a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organisation.
TOP Melbourne silk David Galbally QC raised the ire of AFL commissioners after complaining about “the one-sided way” a hearing was being conducted into salary cap cheating offences committed by the Adelaide Crows in relation to Kurt Tippett’s contract in 2012.
LONG-time Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon remains “bewildered and angered” at the AFL investigation into claims brothers Daniel and Michael Talia shared game-sensitive information before the 2015 Dogs-Adelaide Crows elimination final.
BROADCAST legend and former Australian Football Hall of Fame selector Tim Lane was ostracised from league events after publishing a series of stories casting doubt over the legitimacy of Kieren Jack’s passage to the Sydney Swans in the 2005 rookie draft.
LEAGUE chiefs “pressured” the AFL Players’ Association to sack its public affairs manager, Ben Hart, after a bitter round of player pay talks in 2011.
FORMER Victorian premier John Cain declared before his death in 2019 that the state had never known an entity “with as much power as the AFL”.
BLOOD tests conducted on Essendon players were “interpreted by AFL and ASADA investigators far differently from those at Geelong” during the 2013 supplements scandal.
Ex-Sydney chairman Richard Colless also unleashes on the AFL’s decision to punish the Swans over the 2013 recruitment of Hawthorn superstar Lance Franklin.
“It was done vindictively, it was done brutally,” Colless said. “And the trade ban, as far as I am concerned, is the greatest act of bastardry that I have ever observed or experienced in my time in football. It was symptomatic of the complete lack of respect that the AFL had for the clubs and the complete disregard for their own rules when things didn’t play out the way they wanted them to.
“To this day, no one has said that Sydney actually did something wrong in securing Lance Franklin via free agency. In reality the AFL probably broke four or five of their own rules – and if a club had done it, they probably would have been fined millions of dollars and lost multiple draft picks.”
Reflecting on a tirade of abuse he received in a phone call from then AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick, Colless said: “The repeated threats that if this got into the public domain there would be consequences, I found more than anything absolutely astonishing.
“With the passage of time the one word that I would use to describe the incident is ‘pathetic’.”
The Boys’ Club by Michael Warner, out Wednesday (Hachette, $33)
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