Mark Robinson on the multiple issues facing the AFL and Gill McLachlan

Not everyone has liked how the AFL has dealt with the game’s problems, but dealt with them it has, writes Mark Robinson. But these troubling days for the league don’t seem to be going away.

MELBOURNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 2022: Gillon McLachlan. Players and fans make their way to the MCG during the 2022 AFL Grand Final Parade. Picture: Mark Stewart

In his remaining weeks, which now could be well into next year, Gillon McLachlan has more priorities to attend to than the Echuca SES.

Depending who you talk to, either McLachlan and the AFL are in a calamitous state, with sirens sounding in every hallway of the sport, or the AFL has everything mostly under control and, as usual, all the tasks will be ticked off.

That latter is largely true: The AFL has always had issues, but McLachlan, and Andrew Demetriou before him, have been able to find his way through the reeds.

Not everyone has liked how the AFL has dealt with the game’s problems, but dealt with them it has.

But these are deeply troubling days for the AFL.

Club presidents and executives are worried, lawsuits beckon, and Tasmania remains a major issue, among a host of going concerns.

The concussion farce this week has displayed the AFL’s disdain for the game’s biggest problem.

Gillon McLachlan has endured a tough few months in the run up to him stepping down.

It has been heavy reading, which included a rare apology from the AFL to the game’s players who took part in the concussion research project.

But it’s far more personal than the revelations about the legitimacy of data, testing, and the search for funding. When Anita Frawley, the wife of the late Danny Frawley, takes a swipe at the AFL, then sirens are wailing.

The next step surely is the much-touted class action.

“They’ve got no idea how to handle that,’’ one senior club figure said.

A final vote on the 19th license in Tasmania was supposed to have been made by the end of August and it’s almost the start of November.

McLachlan in June said “no stadium, no team’’ and at the most recent presidents’ meeting, it was revealed there was a $375 million black hole in stadium funding.

McLachlan will need to be a magician to make it work. It’s not beyond him, but $375 million short of a total cost of about $750 million can hardly be found in meat trays on a Friday night in the pub.

There’s also been concerns discussed among the clubs about inflated revenue items for membership and sponsorship, while the operating costs of the potential new team are rubbery.

All the while, the AFL is contributing enormous amounts to Greater Western Sydney, Gold Coast, the Brisbane Lions, St Kilda, the Western Bulldogs, North Melbourne and Melbourne. The Giants and Suns are nearing a combined $350 million in funding over the past 10 years.

Alastair Clarkson, who is part of the taskforce to get a team in Tasmania, has become embroiled in racism scandal.

The Hawthorn racism storm hangs heavy and it’s not yet known if the Indigenous players and their families will agree to participate in the AFL investigation.

How that ends is not yet known.

Understandably, the issue has consumed the AFL in recent weeks, and even after it pulled together the four-person panel to run the investigation, led by Victorian lawyer Bernard Quinn KC and including barristers Jacqualyn Turfrey, Tim Goodwin and Julie Buxton, there has been discussion about why a former coach was not included on the panel.

There will be a legal outcome to the investigation, but on a wider scale, racism in AFL is a cultural problem.

The AFLW competition preaches professionalism as one of the elite female sports programs in the country, yet the participants are subjected to backwater change-room conditions.

Cockroaches, just two toilets and dirty showers confronted Hawthorn players when they played in a match at Marrickville 10 days ago.

Two nights previous, AFLW boss Nicole Livingstone was honoured with an award at the Women’s Health “Women in Sports Awards”.

Awards and cockroaches generally don’t go hand-in-hand.

It would seem the competition’s rapid expansion — and moving to a late-August start — hasn’t allowed infrastructure to keep up.

“The women’s competition is grossly underfunded,’’ one club figure said. “And the players are underpaid.’’

Then there’s issues with umpiring standards, salaries for coaching staff, and a huge crunch looms for ground availability during the finals series in November.

Nicole Livingstone and the AFLW have problems of their own.

At headquarters, the league is looking for a new head of football to replace Brad Scott, who signed at Essendon three weeks ago.

It’s understood the AFL is keen to bring in younger football people, like Jimmy Bartel or Jordan Lewis, for example.

Bartel has spoken to the AFL, while Lewis recently sat down with Demetriou to discuss the possibility of him joining the AFL’s football department.

Although it’s unlikely Lewis would replace Scott, for he doesn’t have the experience, it’s understood Demetriou was impressed by the four-time premiership Hawk.

Further up the pole is the confusing situation — well, confusing for club presidents — about why the AFL Commission does not fill its two vacant positions.

Combined with the fact Andrew Newbold has stood down pending the Hawks’ investigation, clubs are bewildered by the lack of movement at the Commission table.

As much as there’s an urgent push at club level to install Brendon Gale as McLachlan’s replacement, whenever that will be, clubs would also be keen for former Sydney CEO Andrew Ireland to join the Commission.

Swans great Michael O’Loughlin is another name linked to the Commission, which is led by Richard Goyder, who rarely speaks to the media, and who rarely speaks out about the game.

For sure, footy thrived on the field in 2022, but certainly the same can’t be said about the game off the field.

In McLachlan’s final months, he has been confronted with more crises combined than he’s faced in all of his career. Indeed, his one-time impeccable legacy is being seriously challenged.