Hawthorn racism scandal now confined to the AFL brand protection hall of fame, writes Michael Warner
The Hawthorn racism saga can join the Talia brothers investigation and tanking inquiry in the AFL brand protection hall of fame, writes Michael Warner.
We’ve been here before. Over and over again. Another conveniently contrived outcome aimed at protecting the brand of the AFL.
It’s like Groundhog Day, only without the laughs.
Footy fans should have suspected the jig was up a few weeks ago when a story lobbed from out of nowhere suggesting the AFL’s independent panel investigating historic allegations of racism at Hawthorn was struggling to make inroads.
Then another story landed to soften the ground some more suggesting the three accused ex-Hawks officials - Alastair Clarkson, Chris Fagan and Jason Burt - were set to be exonerated by the league, despite the magnitude of the claims against them.
The trigger for the game’s latest integrity heist was pulled on May 18 when Clarkson took a leave of absence from North Melbourne and football’s master dealmaker, Gillon McLachlan, got down to work.
“I actually don’t know what the definition of tanking is,” McLachlan once declared of another whitewashed footy scandal.
It’s not unlike the time the Talia brothers’ leaking probe magically went away when we were asked to believe a player had accidentally dropped a mobile phone full of incriminating text messages down a Bali dunny.
Doing a deal on racism would always be a tougher task, but just because almost everyone wanted the Hawthorn story to be over should not blind us to what the AFL has done.
McLachlan and the league seem to have carefully negotiated the investigation away and in the process absolved themselves of any responsibility for what happens next.
“We aren’t going to get sued and it doesn’t involve us anymore. You can go somewhere else to sort it out,” was the takeaway message from Tuesday night’s press conference.
Brand protection has always been the AFL’s priority - no matter the seriousness of an allegation or investigation.
And, of course, there’s always a patsy in footy’s justice system - someone who has to pay a price, which this time round will be Hawthorn for supposedly botching its cultural safety review.
The establishment of a four-person independent panel led by Bernard Quinn KC was always an ill-conceived plan to address the allegations and after labouring for eight months to reach an outcome, McLachlan stepped in and reverted to type.
But what about the truth? What actually happened at Hawthorn all those years ago? And where is that independent panel report that they promised us? Even an interim one!
What about AFL commissioner Andrew Newbold and those emails?
Will we ever know just how much money was spent on an investigative panel that ultimately was not required to report a single thing?
And what of AFL commission chairman Richard Goyder who has presided over this latest fiasco - fresh off another shemozzle process that finally settled on Andrew Dillon to replace McLachlan in October?
The Human Rights Commission sounds like an important place for the First Nations families to take their case, but in reality it is an over-worked and under-resourced entity that will take years to deliver an outcome.
And by the time it does, the Hawthorn racism scandal will be another distant memory confined to the AFL brand protection hall of fame.
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