What exactly are the responsibilities of a football club in controlling the behaviour of individual players? How much responsibility must individual players accept for their own behaviour?
AFL is in the spotlight at the moment for all the wrong reasons. And the club with the torch currently shining brightly on them is the West Coast Eagles. The Eagles, 2006 AFL premiers, have had a series of serious incidents beset their preparation and early performance this season.
The fact that they keep winning has nothing to do with the club’s culture. Culture is not reflected in victories. It is reflected in behaviour and image. In that department, the Eagles are in trouble. At least, the AFL believes so, calling the Eagles’ administration to meet the code’s bosses to explain what’s going on. The latest news is that a major sponsor is considering cutting its ties with the club. For a company to consider walking out on the best team in Australia’s biggest sporting competition, something worrying must be happening.
Among the incidents that have characterized the club’s lead in and beginning to the season are Ben Cousins’ drug problems and Daniel Kerr’s alleged link to drug dealers, Michael Braun swearing in a live post-match interview, Cousins’ and Michael Gardiner’s alleged links to the underworld and failure to co-operate with police investigations, Chad Fletcher’s death-defying alleged drug overdose and, last week, Adam Selwood’s appearance before the Tribunal on a charge of sledging Fremantle’s Des Headland with disgusting remarks about Headland’s six-year-old daughter. Selwood was cleared and is now considering suing media for defamation. In almost every other case, the club seems to have avoided, downplayed or dismissed the issue.
Many believe the Eagles’ reaction to incidents questioning player behaviour is that it is more concerned with getting people to lay off the club than examine why these things keep happening. In many sporting clubs the mode of operation centres on an Us vs Them mentality. Whether it is Us against other clubs, or Us against the media, or us against the world, some sporting clubs seem to think that a confrontational mentality off the field will somehow galvanize it on the field. It worked for Steve Waugh’s Australian cricket team, but it is fraught with risk.
The Eagles are a very tight-knit and successful club. There are obviously many things they are doing right. In the sports pages of Perth newspapers there are only two things that matter – the Eagles and, to a lesser extent, the Dockers. The players are treated like stars around town and so they should be. They are young, fit and successful. However, they also have status, money and time. The danger with that combination is that there can be a sense of being above the law.
The message from Eagles leadership is confusing. In some cases it appears to suggest that the club believes it is unfairly being picked on, that it’s being targetted, its players are no worse behaved than at other clubs and the club is unconditionally behind the players. If that is the case, where does that leave the players? I believe it instills a mentality among them that they don’t need to take much responsibility for their actions.
What do you think?
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April 27th 2007 @ 2:20pm
Bob McGregor said | April 27th 2007 @ 2:20pm | Report comment
To think the Swans were beaten by one point in the 2006 AFL Grand Final by a team which has since been reported to have included some players on performance enhancing drugs, makes a mockery of the the AFL’s inaction and response towards drugs. The West Coast Eagles should be stripped of the 2006 flag – like a winner of a horse race found to be presented with illegal substances or an Olympic athlete who was latter stripped of a medal – such as Ben Johnson after the 1988 100m mens final – for having illegal substances present at prior/time of event.
The Adelaide Crows must be agrieved as well given their results over the Swans! But what makes the matter worse was the Eagles inaction when they knew what was going on.
I’m a Rugby supporter first and an AFL supporter second, who even shelled out $2600 going to the 2006 AFL grand Final. If I’d known such a taint was over the Eagles I’d have never gone! At least the ARU did the correct thing in standing down Wendell Sailor when testing showed him to be a drug cheat and sacking him when his B sample proved the A sample analysis was correct. It may have cost the Waratahs the flag but at least justice was and was seen to be done. Sailor was then subjected to a 2 year ban – the accepted International punishment for drug cheats in sport. How the AFL can sit on it’s hand and do nothing to uphold accepted International standards must cast a slur over all clean Aussie athletes everywhere.
April 27th 2007 @ 2:45pm
Dave said | April 27th 2007 @ 2:45pm | Report comment
AFL clubs keep promoting themselves as a “family” for the players. And, it’s true, the players spend more time with their teammates and coaches than probably anyone else. So, of course, the club must take responsibility for the behaviour of the players. Effectively, they are the players’ parents!!
April 27th 2007 @ 9:32pm
Greg said | April 27th 2007 @ 9:32pm | Report comment
Bob,
You have to understand the Sailor was never branded a “drug cheat” and neither have any of the Eagles players – in fact due to the illicit nature of recreational drugs there have been no conclusive tests done as to whether cocaine or amphetamines (ice, speed etc) actually increase performance. I am not condoning players taking drugs, but you must realise that all or at least the vast majority use these drugs for recreation, not to enhance performance on the field. So before you say the Eagles should be stripped of the flag, you must acknowledge that these drugs, while illegal, do not nessacarily increase performance.
I do agree that the AFL should be doing more, this 3 strikes policy is outrageous – the club’s doctor gets told but the coaches and trainers dont get told until the 3rd strike! The fact that a player is allowed three strikes is stupid – by the time they use all of their chances the player could potentially be in serious trouble with drugs. Cousins didn’t even get up to 2 strikes and he had major problems.
It does also seem at times that the Eagles club seems to be diverting attention away from the fact that many of their players have been in trouble recently. I think the club should take a harder line and even release a disiplinary directive to the players and public to show that they are serious in solving the problems they currently have. This directive could list in black and white what the consequences are for certain offences. I think this could be an AFL initiative because all clubs need harsher punishments – if anyone thinks these cases are isolated to the Eagles then they are very naive. The Eagles players just seem to be the ones who get caught! All clubs would have problems like this, they just haven’t made it into the press yet.
The AFL is not doing enough about this, it should be putting more pressure on the clubs so this kind of thing does not happen again, part of the blame must go to the AFL too.
I am not an Eagles supporter by the way!
April 28th 2007 @ 12:03pm
Dave said | April 28th 2007 @ 12:03pm | Report comment
Fair point about illicit drugs not being performance enhancing. However, the AFL, like most sporting bodies in Australia, have made it very clear that they treat illicit and performance enhancing drugs as equal evils. In fact, the AFL corrects journalists and others when they say ‘recreational’ and make sure these drugs are refered to as illicit.
PS. When all this drug stuff started coming out recently, did anyone spare a thought for the former Swans player Dale Lewis, who three or four years ago dared to speak the truth by saying that there was a drug problem in AFL? He was basically driven out of Sydney and ostracised from AFL. How ironic.
April 28th 2007 @ 12:06pm
sheek said | April 28th 2007 @ 12:06pm | Report comment
Bob,
It’s going a bit too far to say the Eagles should be stripped of the 2006 title.
However, agree the AFL should be tougher on drugs. The real culprits would be the Eagles board, management & coaching staff. They had a good idea what was going on & they are responsible for setting the boundaries of behaviour standards at their club.
April 28th 2007 @ 12:27pm
Dave said | April 28th 2007 @ 12:27pm | Report comment
Wow – did anyone see the comments in today’s paper from Eagles coach John Worsfold?
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“We’ve got a really talented group of players that are forming a brand new culture,” he said.
“There needed to be a cultural change and that started at the end of 2004 leading into 2005.
“We took bigger steps when Ben Cousins lost the captaincy, and even bigger steps last year leading into this year.
“The players have a lot of respect for Ben, how hard he prepares, plays the game, pushes himself, but I think they were getting to the point that Ben’s behaviour was wearing very thin.
“We’re making massive changes with Ben not there at the moment . . . he isn’t a part of it.”
How things change!!
April 28th 2007 @ 12:54pm
Bob McGregor said | April 28th 2007 @ 12:54pm | Report comment
Seems like I’ve stirred up a hornets nest with my realistic statement that the West Coast Eagles should be stripped of the 2006 flag. Horse race results are overturned where “specimen irregularities” are detected after the event, as are medalists in the Olympics who failed “drug tests”. People can play with symmantics about whether an illicit substance is “recreational” or “not performance enhancing” . But it doesn’t alter the fact it is illegal. Perhaps thats why the AFL won’t have a bar of the Olympic drugs charter and testing?!
If consuming “illicit drugs” makes one relax more, perhaps they will kick strighter and this could make the difference to a one point loss. Think of the easy shots that Jude Bolton & Barry Hall missed in the 2006 GF and last Sat in Adelaide where the Swans couldn’t kick straight to save themselves.
West Coast knew they had a problem mid 2006 and did nothing about it – certainly not publicly. Australian AFL writer Chip Le Grand analysed Cousins statistics from that time to the GF and compared them to period before the statement was made by the Eagles. He concluded that Cousins stats improved significantly. Where others also in the same boat?
The condescending attitude of some to illicit drugs astounds me. Remember it’s like a little pregnancy – it has a “habit” of getting bigger and eventually out of hand.
Imagine the screams if say Ian Thorpe was stripped of his Olympic medals. This is highly unlikely as he was tested more than any athlete. We all know Raeline Boyle was deprived of gold by East German Stricher[?] – because adequate testing of athletes prior/during meets did not exist in the sixties. But today it appears everyone except AFL players are subjected to drug tests with significant penalties – usually a 2 to 4 year ban!
April 28th 2007 @ 5:03pm
Roger said | April 28th 2007 @ 5:03pm | Report comment
It rankles that people on both the West Coast Eagles board and their management team were not only aware of this problem , but also acquiesed , resulting in the offender proudly showing the AFL Premiership Cup to the world on grand final day.
What do these people have to say for themselves ?.
Ben Cousins’ addiction neither happened overnight nor in a vaccuum.
Even though I have no opinion about what might be construed as a fair and reasonable penalty in this matter ,I do however think that whatever punishment is meeted out to Cousins when he is finally brought to book , should equally apply to those culpable club executives who knew of the problem ,did nothing, and just sat pat.
The law of probabilty suggests some people at the West Coast Eagles must have been aware of the likelyhood at times that Ben Cousins played football for the club whilst under the influence of drugs.
.
April 28th 2007 @ 8:01pm
sheek said | April 28th 2007 @ 8:01pm | Report comment
Bob,
You appear touchy about this subject. The analogy of racehorses is illogical. Horses are a single entity, Football teams are made up of many individuals.
Unless the AFL can prove more than a handful of Eagles players were on the “juice”, performance enhancing or recreational I don’t care, it’s difficult to strip them of the title based on the suspicion of a handful. In any case, the opportunity has passed the AFL by for now.
They should look to getting their act together in the future. I read the article relating to Ben Cousins, & yes, it’s damning. Again, the AFL let the opportunity pass them by.
All the Football codes, not just AFL, do & will continue to have increasing problems related to young players earning too much money, having too much free time, being molly-coddled too much, & generally living in an unreal world, totally unrelated to the reality of most of the rest of us.
They must either learn to deal with it, or expect more damning publicity in the future. My sister’s boyfriend is the uncle of one of the Eagles’ top 5 players. So far this young man has attracted nothing but complimentary reviews. However, my sister’s boyfriend tells of the unreal world he lives in – massive money, a penthouse, living the high life, investments, etc all done for him. He has to think about little apart from training & playing Footy, chasing girls, & enjoying himself.
Instead of directing your anger at the West Coast Eagles players, it is the WCE board & AFL Commission you should be targeting. Bad news will catch up with them eventually, if they fail to be pro-active on the drugs issue.
April 28th 2007 @ 8:17pm
Greg said | April 28th 2007 @ 8:17pm | Report comment
Sheek, I fully agree.
As I have said it is the club and the AFL who should share the blame.
Bob, I am assuming you are a little naive on the whole “recreational drugs” scene – I don’t condone the use of drugs, but these players who are using recreational drugs do not use it to enhance performance, they use them to get a high on their off time. They do not take them before a game, they take them when they go to clubs after a game. Their motives are not to improve performance because the effect of the drugs would have well and truly worn off by the time they get onto the field. Only traces that stay in the system and can be picked up by lab tests remain.