Clarkson stand-down the inevitable consequence of racism investigation botched from start to finish

It was 239 days ago, on September 21, 2022, that ABC journalist Russell Jackson lifted the lid on the most serious allegations ever levelled at a standing AFL coach.

In case you need the briefest of reminders: their identities protected, former Hawthorn First Nations players accused then-coach Alastair Clarkson, then-assistant Chris Fagan and then-player development manager Jason Burt of extraordinary, racist and traumatic conduct, which included one player’s partner to abort her pregnancy in the best interests of his football.

Nearly eight months on, we are no closer to the truth than we were on that fateful Wednesday that the story broke. More incredibly, the parties involved, from Clarkson and Fagan to the players themselves, are no closer to justice and absolution. Clarkson has now taken indefinite leave from North Melbourne, the allegations still hanging over his head – no reasonable person could possibly refer to this prolonged stalemate as an ‘ongoing investigation’ – and with no recourse to respond to them or his accusers beyond repeated public denials.

This is a saga that has been woefully mismanaged since the day the Hawthorn Football Club first commissioned its review into its grim recent past, and has continued through the AFL’s attempts to take control of the situation and its outcomes.

There has likely never been a more complicated situation for club or league to confront, given not just the severity of the allegations but also Clarkson and Fagan’s standing as celebrated current coaches, and the additional vested interests in the AFL community that arise from the latter.

But it is an achievement in itself to have gotten it this wrong. Every single party involved deserves better.

To begin with the Hawks, it is incredible that a review into institutional racism at their club was conducted without adequate consideration into giving Clarkson and Fagan a chance to respond in confidence to the allegations, or to properly support the First Nations players who contributed.

Alastair Clarkson. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

“The reality is the AFL and Hawthorn did not speak to us or give us any support after we contributed to the review,” a family member told Jackson in October.

Speaking to 3AW earlier this month, former Hawks president Jeff Kennett blamed the circus that has ensured in public view on the leaking of the report’s contents to Jackson. Perhaps if his club had been more committed to supporting the players and their families who contributed to the review – one couple, according to their lawyer Dr Judy Courtin in October last year, had been ‘forced to beg, cap in hand’ for the Hawks to fork out for counselling, an exceedingly reasonable request – they may not have turned to the media to seek justice.

Hawthorn, seemingly, had no plan to address the allegations, which if true warrant hefty compensation, beyond using them to form the basis of a report vowing that the club would learn from their past indiscretions and apologise for past mistakes, in a similar fashion to Collingwood’s famously bungled ‘Do Better’ report release in early 2021.

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Then, when what they uncovered proved far more serious than even the worst of the Collingwood review – or at least, what has been made publicly available – there was apparently no consideration that this genie could not possibly be kept in the bottle.

The First Nations players are just as much a victim of this shambles as Clarkson and Fagan, though with the benefit of maintaining their right to anonymity – anyone questioning this would do well to remember the vitriol directed at Heritier Lumumba from sections of the public amid his ongoing struggle with the Magpies – they have at least surely not been confronted as repeatedly as Clarkson and Fagan, the former especially, in their high-profile coaching roles.

You could be generous and give the Hawks the benefit of the doubt that their review was commissioned with the best of intentions, but virtually every step following was the wrong one. Hawthorn unearthed a monster, then had no plan to control it, kill it, or even confront it. In Clarkson’s own words: ‘Shameful.’

Perhaps the die was already cast when the AFL took control of the case in October last year, quickly appointing a (not-so) independent panel to investigate the allegations.

Nevertheless, that the key issue blocking any significant progress – that the Hawthorn players and families were unwilling to engage in an investigation by a panel appointed by the AFL, of whose members’ appointment process has never been publicly explained – remains an impasse more than seven months on is ridiculous. Just this month, the latest stalemate came in the form of said players and families refusing Clarkson, Fagan and Burt access to private documents, without which that trio have refused to be interviewed.

Alastair Clarkson and Chris Fagan at a Hawthorn training session in 2016. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

I’ll put my hand up and admit my call for Clarkson and Fagan to be sacked when the allegations against them first came to light was excessively emotional and came without the required caveat that said allegations needed to be validated – many readers strongly opposed my viewpoint, and on entirely reasonable grounds.

But as it turns out, standing the pair down from their coaching roles until the investigation concluded, rather than letting them return when their clubs were satisfied it was okay to do so, would surely have been a better solution for all, even Clarkson and Fagan themselves.

It would at least have proven to the players and families that the AFL were treating their allegations with full desire to obtain a resolution and not simply to try and save face – a family member told Jackson in October last year that the AFL allowing the pair to resume coaching would prove that they ‘truly don’t care about us’ – while also preventing Clarkson in particular needing to repeatedly answer questions from a news-hungry media while totally hamstrung save for professing his innocence.

Would this have been fair? Not in the least. But neither has been the current state of affairs, which has left Clarkson and Fagan standing with a scythe over the heads for a full two-thirds of a year. We have seen publicly the toll it has taken on the former, who has grown more harried and frustrated with every new development. In trying to satisfy all parties, the AFL have done the exact opposite.

In the court of public opinion, those who called for Clarkson and Fagan’s heads the moment the allegations came to light, and those who dismissed the allegations as being far-fetched and fuelled by ulterior motives, are unlikely to have changed their opinions eight months down the line. How could you, given the exercise in treading water that those months have offered?

It’s far from the most pressing priority, but this has also been manifestly unfair on the innocent parties that are the North Melbourne and Brisbane Football Clubs, their players, staff and supporters – the Kangaroos in particular must now face the possibility that the appointed saviour of their club after years of on-field misery may never coach them again.

Speculation was inevitable: this is easily the biggest AFL story since at least the Essendon drugs investigation, and maybe even more serious in terms of its consequences. As the saga drags on and leaks from within become more regular, every party’s trust in the investigation process is lowered. With every passing day of this stalemate, absolution surely becomes less and less likely for all involved.

This has been a review, a process, and an investigation mishandled from first to last, to the point where it now may be unfixable unless one party or another makes a substantial sacrifice in the name of justice.

It’s farcical. It’s unfair. It’s shameful. And more than anything, it’s just so, so sad.