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That the Melbourne Football Club were found not guilty of tanking yet still received a $500 000 fine shows that the AFL are confused over how to charge and punish its clubs.
Not willing to go all the way and say that Melbourne tanked, but also not willing to say they were completely in the clear, the AFL have fallen back on that classic catch all of ‘bringing the game into disrepute.’
The findings of the investigation satisfy no one, although inadvertently the AFL may have got the punishment right. The two men at the centre of the investigation (Chris Connelly and Dean Bailey) were suspended and the club – while not officially endorsing the views of their former football manager and coach – were the employer and deserved the hefty fine.
The innocent parties – the players themselves and the supporters – have been spared any further heartache that draft restrictions or loss of premiership points may have inflicted.
While many will be of the opinion that Melbourne have only received a slap on the wrist (despite being the recipient of the third largest fine in AFL history), the immediate future of the club has not been destroyed.
This is a good thing.
With the Melbourne saga resolved (at least in the eyes of the AFL), the sport’s controlling body can now focus on its next major issue – the Essendon ‘supplement’ crisis.
While somewhat hamstrung by the length of time that the investigation into Essendon’s alleged use of performance enhancing substances will take, the AFL will have already begun looking into ways to punish the Bombers if a guilty verdict is forthcoming.
The most obvious punishments include financial sanctions, loss of draft picks and loss of match points.
It is a gimme that the AFL will fine the Bombers, whether they are guilty or not. They’ll trot out the old ‘bringing the game into disrepute’ line and fine the club substantially.
Financially Essendon is a stable club, but with big money invested in the construction of its new headquarters at Melbourne Airport, fines would undoubtedly sting.
Banning the club from participating in the draft would also hurt. Poor recruiting several years ago left the Bombers with a hole in their list that is only now starting to fill. They had older stars and promising up and comers, but lacked talent across players in that mid-age range.
Draft sanctions may not provide immediate pain, but a couple of years down the track the hurt will start to kick in.
Is this fair then, to the next group of players coming through? Is it fair to punish future players of the club for past transgressions? Shouldn’t the punishment be felt by the perpetrators today and not the poor innocents of tomorrow?
Of course it should.
For that reason alone, the punishment has to be immediate. It must be severe, but not as far reaching as to cripple the club for generations to come. First year players such as Joe Daniher should not have to pay for the rest of their careers.
Taking draft picks off the Bombers, or any other club, is not the answer. The AFL wants an even competition. They want clubs to be competitive. An evenly fought season with one sided blow outs kept to a minimum, creates interest and support. Struggling clubs mean low attendances and ugly, boring games which supporters will lack the motivation to watch.
Playing the whole season without being awarded any match points also falls short of the mark.
The NRL went down that path with the Melbourne Storm after its salary cap breaches, stripping the club of its most recent premierships and forcing it to play a season without any points. The punishment was for amassing a team of players that it might not otherwise have been able to bring together, thus creating an unfair advantage.
History shows us that Essendon had no such success in 2012 when the alleged doping took place. Far from dominating the competition as the Storm did theirs, the Bombers’ season fizzled out completely and they played no part in the September action.
That’s not to say that Essendon, if found guilty, should go unpunished. But playing without the reward of match points robs the most innocent of all the stakeholders – the supporters – of a meaningful season. Our game thrives on passion, but how can the masses get passionate about games that mean nothing?
There are no easy answers to the punishment question, but a compromise of sorts may be the best solution. Outlined in the Melbourne Herald-Sun last week was an idea that, while punishing the team, also provided the spectators with at least some hope for the season and avoided future generations of players having to deal with the burdens of the past.
Under the scheme, a guilty club would start the season behind scratch, that is with a premiership points handicap. While all clubs start on zero, and start accumulating points four at a time with each win, the sanctioned club would start the season on minus 16 points (eg four games behind the rest of the field).
The following season they might start with a three game handicap, the year after that two games, then one.
If the club is good enough, it can still win its way through to the finals, providing its fans with at least some hope and giving the players something to play for. The club remains competitive, but faces an up hill battle for a decent ladder position, and the competition is not compromised by a broken, dispirited team.
Those at the club who were involved in the scandal must cope with the sanctions, but the new blood coming in will have the chance to forge their own career as the penalty diminishes over time.
While it is not an ideal solution, it seems a fair compromise. Punishment is immediate, the club is not destroyed beyond repair, and the young players coming into the side can see light at the end of the tunnel.
The roadblock to immediate punishment though is the length of time that the investigation may take. And it is here that the AFL faces its nightmare scenario.
Let’s assume for a moment that the Bombers are guilty, but the investigation stretches on for months, possibly years. They enter the season unsanctioned, play well, and end up winning the grand final, only to later be found guilty.
The situation is not without precedent and we may look no further than pro-cycling to see how farcical such a situation can become.
Alberto Contador, perhaps the climber of his generation, returned a positive test for clenbuterol during the 2010 Tour de France. His sample contained a minimal amount (just 0.00000000005g/ml) of the banned substance which Contador claimed had entered his system via a contaminated steak.
Initially cleared, the decision was appealed and as the case got tied up in the courts, El Pistolero continued to race, amassing further victories including the prestigious Giro d’Italia in 2011.
When the guilty verdict was finally upheld, he was stripped of his 2010 Tour de France title and all race victories following it, including the 2011 Giro victory, basically rendering the races null and void.
So would the AFL follow suit and declare the 2013 premiership null and void should a guilty Essendon win it? Would they lay waste to a whole season in a bid to curb future doping temptation?
They claim that they have contingency plans in place should action need to be taken after the season has started, but if the confusion surrounding the Melbourne case is any indication, then nothing will be cut and dried.
We will all watch on with interest.
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