Eddie McGuire unleashes on 'cheating' GWS

It begs the question of how GWS are supposed to talk to soon to be uncontracted players mid season while those players are talking about resigning with their current clubs. I suggest the odds are stacked in favour of the incumbent clubs if GWS cant move in mid season...If I was a star player looking at moving I want to know who else is coming to GWS because I dont want to be the only experienced player there.. Eddie, did you speak to Darren Jolly mid season when he was at the Swans about moving south....

OMG!!! The biggest hypocrite in the AFL who is head of the biggest "cheating" team in the AFL, pipes up having a cry. He has the hide to say, "This is 1 rule for one club and 1 rule for the rest of the AFL!". Eddie, this is how your entire organisation has had it YOUR way for the last 7 or 8 years (at least). The utter and total favouritism of Collingwood from the AFL works fine when it suits you, but when you see something that you don't agree with, you scream "Cheats, Cheats wah wah!" And of course the AFL will do something about it because that is what your club pays for, right? Don't kid yourself people, it is not the Australian Football League, it is the Collingwood Football League and 17 other subordinates. You do what you want to get Didak off - Hypocrite. You do what you want to get Shaw off - Hypocrite, You do what you want to go after Vince mid season - Hypocrite. You do what you want to buy no less than 17 games a year in Melbourne over the past 7 years - Hypocrite. You do what you want to get this years final round main card - Hypocrite. Malthouse gets off calling Milne a "F....g rapist" - Hypocrite. The entire Collingwood cheer squad calls him a "rapist" every game now and you have the hide to cry at a Saints supporter who has a go at Krakouer - Hypocrite. Malthouse calls Maric a "cheat" and you refuse to offer a personal or public apology, yet demand apologies from the media, other teams and players regularly - Hypocrite. I have been watching this game for over 40 years. I do not support any 1 team, I watch every game each weekend. But I despise Collingwood for the fact that they do what they want when they want, they pay for what they want and they get it, they demand everyone else in the comp follow the "rules" when they do not and the AFL do NOTHING to stop them.

Regardless of whether you like or dislike Collingwood Eddie McGuire he has got a good point here. Regardless of whether you can think of other examples of players or other clubs doing the same thing, Eddie McGuire has a good point here. The point is that the AFL rule needs to be tested so everyone knows what the acceptable benchmark is. It is like new pieces of legislation. No one practically knows how to apply them until they are tested. The three keywords in the rule are: shall not enter into any CONTRACTS, AGREEMENTS or UNDERSTANDINGS with a player that is included on the list of another club.......surely what Phil Davis and others last year have done qualifies as an agreement or understanding....... Eddie is spot on!! Let's test the rule and then we can all shut up about it!! You can see more of my comments at:www.facebook.com/pages/The-Mad-Chatter/14597098110

Fair enough Ben but surely that's got almost everything to do with having 17/18 teams and only 22 games. Therein lies the inequity, but all too often Collingwood is the cheap shot target. Still, with 71,000 members and last year's flag, I suppose that's how things go.

HI Searly - to me it's not about being anti-Collingwood (as a team). It's about why we cannot seem to have anything approaching a fair and evenly-balanced fixture list in any given year for what is apparently (to some) the most important sporting competition not only domestically, but also in the entire cosmos...

Slightly off topic but stiil on Collingwood. The story below is a classic example of why AFL State of Origin may not return while the current admins are in power. We can understand why the Maggies are doing it of course if it does occur. As for the Irish series - It makes money for the AFL and that is why A.D. still pushes it. Link-- http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/collingwood-players-could-miss-international-rules-series/story-e6frf9jf-1226106973291

The protesting McGuire is a fool or a knave. Fool if he doesn't recognise that a successful GWS, with a potentially huge population support base, will consolidate the AFL as the national winter sports competition in Australia - with ongoing benefits for all AFL clubs. It's a high risk strategy for the AFL and could fail, but now it's underway, only an idiot or an enemy of the AFL would try to undermine it. More likely McGuire is a knave who wants the increased profile for his sport and increased TV revenue for his club, but wants to warn off GWS from any foray into the Pies' player list.

Eddie is very vocal when situations arise that he does not like- He bitched and whinged for years about the cost of living concessions etc given originally to the Swans and the Lions. He will take his clubs huge membership etc ok but when the "Game" looks like benefitting from the AFL expansion he spits the dummy. Get over it you Victorians - The game is expanding. and has spread from its origins.

Eddie is Channel 9 first, Collingwood second and AFL third. Read his comments in that context. BTW Eddie you know they are not living in Penrith which is a step up from Broady

Ben, maybe that's because Collingwood doesn't sell any of its home games to places like Launceston, Cairns, Darwin or Uranus. Maybe also because every other Victorian club begs to play as many games as possible against Collingwood to boost their revenue. And maybe because the AFL requires Collingwood to play at least two games a year against its big rivals Carlton and Essendon to maximise attendances. And maybe because they have to play Melbourne on the Queens Birthday at the G every year. And maybe it's just cos' they've got their sh*t together and everyone seems to want to whinge about it. To be honest, Collingwood's recent record on the road has been so good that I'd be happy to see them get more away games against Port and Brisbane and the Suns and the Crows and the Dockers and the Swans (who we haven't lost to in living memory). A few more percentage boosters for the Pies in that lot I can assure you....

PS Tristan - when did you get the new-look profile photo? :-)

All that needs to be said is there are more things at issue around the AFL competition than just the entry of a new team and its roster. Collingwood playing for much of the season at the MCG/Dome/anywhere else in Victoria every year would be a fair start.

Sadly this is the way footy is heading .Cant wait for free agency that will be above board wont it? Next year the Afl will be 50% bigger than it was in the Vfl days but has it improved? North not going north to the Gold Coast resulting in a bye neccesitating a 18th team is having a huge impact on all clubs.I dont blame Davis particularly as stabpass pointed out he has family in the Act however the Afl want to remember that ultimately the rank and file supporters generate the interest that they and the corporate dollar covet.It has been my experience that supporters who drop of there team for whatever reason usually lose interest in the game as a whole often never to return.Glad i barrack for Geelong as i got to see them win two flags something alot of other traditional supporters wont get.

Exactly! As pointed out by both Melbourne (forget the tanking) and Adelaide it is unfair for a team to take a player as a high pick in the draft, introduce him to top grade football and then have him stolen on his first contract expiry. However, this will come back to bight Gold Coast and GWS on the ass as the other teams will be lined up to pilfer their players when they come off contract. An interesting aside is that most of the players who accept huge amounts on their first contract will have to take pay cuts on their second as they can't get under the salary cap twice. I would suspect this is why McKenna is saying Karmichael-Hunt wont stay past his first contract.

Because the Gold Coast clearly never did this with the players they signed! The media must have just drawn random players names out of a hat at the start of the season and just got really, really, really lucky when they all ended up signing for GC. It's probably the first real bit of honesty in the whole process. The AFL don't really expect these rules to be followed. It's as much of a serious rule as the old "June 30" deadline in the NRL. It's just designed to stop players announcing the move during the season (which funnily enough didn't work.)

Clubs really have no one to blame but themselves. They should have looked out for themselves, but instead got dazzled by the AFL and the lure of increased TV rights with the expansion teams. Part 1 of Due Diligence should have raised the restriction that Gold Coast or GWS should not be allowed to recruit recent draftees, specifically those at the end of their initial 2 year contract. Blind Freddy could see this becoming a problem. Now with Davis assured of going, and Scully pretty much nailed on, there's 2 players who struggling clubs were pinning their hopes on out the door. Not to mention previous Rising Star winners Palmer and Rich heavily rumoured to be on their way as well.

Much as I hate to agree with Eddie McGuire, he's got a point. I think cheating is not quite the right word though, as that has overtones of deliberately flouting the rules. This situation is a bit different - I suspect GWS is certainly operating in accordance with how it sees the rules. It's just the Eddie doesn't like those rules...