Mark Ricciuto hits out at Channel Nine's Caroline Wilson after her response to legal fallout from Adelaide Crows pre-season camp

Caroline Wilson has broken her silence on the Nine Network’s full retraction of its coverage of the Crows’ 2018 pre-season camp. But Mark Ricciuto has scoffed at her response.

Adelaide Crows board member Mark Ricciuto has hit out at football journalist Caroline Wilson over her response to the Nine Network’s full retraction of its coverage of the club’s 2018 pre-season camp.

Wilson claims publicity around Nine’s legal settlement with camp organiser Collective Mind - revealed last week - had “gone for the individuals” in reference to her and fellow journalist Sam McClure.

But Brownlow medallist and Crows legend Ricciuto scoffed at Wilson’s explanation.

“It is unusual that you would target someone, and go after someone, Caro has never done that,” Ricciuto said on Triple M.

“You know what baffles me in this era, we have journos that go harder than ever before either at clubs or individuals whether it be James Hird who tried to kill himself or Don Pyke who leaves the Crows because he’s had a guts full of football but then they are the first people to talk about mental health in football and how important it is.”

“They smash people to the inch of their life and now they say we have to look after people, the shoe is on the other foot a bit here and they don’t like it.”

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Mark Ricciuto has hit out at Caroline Wilson’s response to the Crows camp legal fallout.

While Nine was forced to issue a mea culpa, there’s no sign of that from Wilson and fellow journalist McClure despite losing a messy legal fight with camp organiser Collective Mind.

The media broadcaster was forced to retract 13 stories written between 2018 and 2021 and paid for the high performance consultancy firm‘s legal costs.

Earlier this week, McClure declared he stood by the articles and now Wilson has also broken her silence, predictably suggesting the story had now become about them and not the camp.

“The whole saga has been disappointing, to be honest. This was an unbelievable story that involved the Adelaide Crows,” Wilson told the Don’t Shoot the Messenger podcast.

“The Adelaide Crows have had an interesting time since they lost the Grand Final to Richmond in 2017, a year they were favoured to win the flag, they capitulated appallingly, they went to the Gold Coast for a camp run by a group called Collective Mind.

“I’ve got to be very careful about what I say, but in the two years that followed that Grand Final loss, most of the assistant coaches left the club, the senior coach left the club, the CEO is gone, the Chairman is gone, the Head of Football is gone.

Adelaide players at training last year.

“The majority of the Crows’ indigenous players have left the club and we know as a matter of record that they had issues with the camp and a lot was written and spoken about that camp and obviously for a variety of reasons the Crows have had a lot go wrong at that footy club.

“A difficult time for the media, and if you go back and read the acknowledgment, which followed an investigation by the workplace watchdog in South Australia, I don’t think any money changed hands except I think Nine Media covered the legal costs of Collective Mind.

“If you go back and read the acknowledgment and the statement from Nine Media, I think News Limited have turned this into something else, which is probably not surprising, they’ve gone for the individuals, which happens.”

McClure won a Quill Award for his reporting of the issue last year with the Melbourne Press Club set to meet to review the award after the apology by The Age.

Originally published as Mark Ricciuto hits out at Channel Nine's Caroline Wilson after her response to legal fallout from Adelaide Crows pre-season camp