{"id":177005,"date":"2025-09-29T07:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T07:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/177005\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T07:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T07:22:09","slug":"geelong-cats-mad-monday-costumes-court-controversy-following-2025-afl-grand-final-loss-to-brisbane-lions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/177005\/","title":{"rendered":"Geelong Cats Mad Monday costumes court controversy following 2025 AFL grand final loss to Brisbane Lions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of Geelong\u2019s biggest names have courted controversy with their Mad Monday costumes, just days after their crushing grand final defeat to the Brisbane Lions.<\/p>\n

Mark Blicavs, Mark O\u2019Connor and Cillian Burke came dressed as controversial Irish rap group Kneecap, Bailey Smith shared a photo of himself flipping the bird again and Ollie Dempsey and Sam De Koning arrived in an Aston Martin and \u201cCotton On\u201d gear, holding brown paper bags; a cheeky reference to the club sponsor\u2019s AFL-approved private sponsorship of their teammate Smith.<\/p>\n

\"Geelong<\/p>\n

Geelong footballers (from left)\u00a0Mark O\u2019Connor, Mark Blicavs and Cillian Burke dressed as members of Irish rap band Kneecap during their Mad Monday celebrations. Credit: K Rock Football<\/p>\n

Smith, who apologised by text to Geelong Advertiser photographer Alison Wynd after verbally abusing her at training just weeks ago, also posted a picture with teammate Max Holmes dressed as award-winning journalist Caroline Wilson with the caption \u201cCaro has never looked better\u201d, but then deleted it.<\/p>\n

Geelong are renowned for using their post-season celebrations to poke fun at contentious moments from the footy season, and the news cycle.<\/p>\n

In June, Fremantle captain Alex Pearce was criticised by Jewish organisations for sharing a post on Instagram from the Belfast hip-hop trio Kneecap, defending their pro-Palestinian stance on Gaza.<\/a><\/p>\n

Dempsey and De Koning\u2019s flamboyant arrival at Geelong\u2019s Wharf Shed appeared to be a nod to Smith\u2019s lucrative deal with Cotton On and its sponsorship of the Cats.<\/p>\n

Geelong are being audited by the AFL this year<\/a> as part of the AFL\u2019s \u201cannual salary cap compliance process\u201d. Another club was also audited this season. The results of the audit have not yet been announced.<\/p>\n

How the Cats structure their player payments has long been a topic of interest around the league and conjecture among fans. St Kilda coach Ross Lyon put the topic on the agenda at a Saints function late last year when he said he thought the Cats leveraged their relationship with Cotton On to retain and attract talent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of Geelong\u2019s biggest names have courted controversy with their Mad Monday costumes, just days after their crushing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-177005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}