{"id":541783,"date":"2026-03-15T10:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T10:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/541783\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T10:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T10:41:14","slug":"afl-in-political-storm-after-telling-wilson-to-remove-cfmeu-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/541783\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL in political storm after telling Wilson to remove CFMEU video"},"content":{"rendered":"

The AFL has been accused of playing politics after telling state Liberal leader Jess Wilson to remove an Instagram post calling out CFMEU corruption.<\/a><\/p>\n

Wilson posted a 30-second video from the MCG outer during last week\u2019s Collingwood-St Kilda clash<\/a> lamenting the number of meat pies that could have been purchased with the $15 billion allegedly stolen from taxpayers in CFMEU rorts.<\/a><\/p>\n

The AFL\u2019s government relations manager Bec Smith contacted Ms Wilson\u2019s office late last week requesting that she take down the post because it included two seconds of match footage in violation of league copyright rules. <\/p>\n

Ms Smith reports directly to AFL corporate affairs executive general manager Sharon McCrohan,<\/a> a former ALP and CFMEU spin doctor.<\/p>\n

A senior opposition figure said the request to remove the post was \u201ca pathetic attempt by Sharon McCrohan\u2019s team to stop Jess Wilson shining a light on $15 billion of CFMEU corruption\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, the CFMEU is like Hotel California \u2013 you can check out any time you like but you can never leave \u2013 even after you\u2019ve checked in to AFL House,\u201d the opposition figure said.<\/p>\n

But the AFL insisted on Sunday that McCrohan had no involvement in the decision.<\/p>\n

AFL spokesperson Jay Allan told the Herald Sun: \u201cThe EGM Corporate Affairs (McCrohan) did not authorise the request to remove the vision and was unaware of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe request should not have been made, we have addressed this internally with staff and the AFL has reached out and communicated this to the Opposition leader\u2019s office today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Opposition says Premier Jacinta Allan posted her own 30-second Instagram clip from the opening bounce of the 2024 AFL grand final without being subjected to the same directive.<\/p>\n

In an email from Ms Smith to Wilson\u2019s office titled \u201cAFL \u2013 match vision approval\u201d, the league wrote: \u201cRegarding the use of match vision, footage in the crowd is fine but approval needs to be sought for using any match vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

The league attached a form for the Liberal leader to fill out seeking permission for \u201cany filming by our non-broadcast rights holders\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, because the Instagram post was of a \u201cpolitical\u201d nature the application was unlikely to be approved, Wilson\u2019s office was told.<\/p>\n

It is understood Ms Wilson has no intention of removing the post.<\/p>\n

Ms McCrohan joined the AFL five months ago and has since come under scrutiny over her role in advising former Carlton president Luke Sayers during last year\u2019s \u201cdick pic\u201d integrity unit investigation.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ms Smith was a senior adviser to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during his time as Opposition Leader.<\/p>\n

Premier Allan this month denied taxpayer funds had been used to boost her own Instagram followers with fake accounts purchased from a South Asian \u201cbot farm\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Allan questioned whether the Liberal Party had played a \u201cpolitical dirty trick to buy bot followers for our accounts in order to get them suspended\u201d \u2013 a claim Ms Wilson described as \u201claughable\u201d.<\/p>\n

Read related topics:CFMEU<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AFL has been accused of playing politics after telling state Liberal leader Jess Wilson to remove an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-541783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541783","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=541783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}