The AFL could have saved themselves 18 months, 58 interviews and 800 pages of evidence if they’d listened to Dean Bailey in the first place.
What Bailey stated publicly when he was sacked as Melbourne coach in 2011 is basically what he, Chris Connolly and the Demons have now been heavily-sanctioned for – after a belated, seven-month investigation.
“I had no hesitation at all in the first two years of ensuring this club was well placed for draft picks,” Bailey told a media conference in August 2011, speaking of coaching decisions he made late in the 2008 and 2009 seasons.
“I experimented to a level that meant we got players into certain positions … I was asked to do the best thing by the Melbourne Football Club and I did it.”
At the time of Bailey’s comments, the AFL found the Demons had nothing to answer for.
Chief executive Andrew Demetriou – a notable absentee from Tuesday’s announcement – continued to insist that tanking didn’t exist and that it was acceptable for players to be played out of position.
Now, the Demons have been fined $500,000, then-football manager Connolly has been banned for a year and Bailey, now an assistant with Adelaide, suspended for 16 games.
Not for tanking, though, at least not by the AFL’s own definition.
But because Bailey rested players and played others out of position.
AFL acting football operations manager Gillon McLachlan stressed the crucial element in the findings was that Bailey acted in response to comments made by Connolly about the importance of draft picks.
“That nexus is critical to this decision,” McLachlan said.
That’s not much different to Bailey’s 2011 admission that: “I was asked to do the best thing by the Melbourne Football Club and I did it.”
McLachlan said the AFL’s integrity unit had been strengthened since that time.
But it seems the key difference was the TV interview with former Demon Brock McLean last July which sparked the latest investigation.
McLachlan admitted on Tuesday that without that interview, in which McLean stated that Blind Freddy would have realised the Demons weren’t doing all they could to win late in 2009, the issue might never have been re-investigated.
It’s worth remembering the Demons didn’t end up gaining much for their 2009 losses.
Their priority No.1 draft pick was used on Tom Scully, who left them for Greater Western Sydney two years later.
They also lost McLean, who joined Carlton after the 2009 season and has since revealed the events of that season prompted his move.
