Changes after ugly Hollands saga a \u2018landmark moment\u2019 as clear sign of Blues \u2018tension\u2019 emerges<\/a><\/p>\nAFL confirm sanctions against Carlton | 18:28<\/p>\n
\u201cFour years on, on that fateful night at the MCG with Elijah Hollands, we saw a club with a psychologist that was not even at the ground, even if he was consulted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe keep being told tonight by the AFL this is a \u2018game changer\u2019, that clubs will have to invest hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars into the care of their players. Well, that\u2019s what they were doing before the cap got cut by millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball will change for the better as a result of this, but would it have changed four years ago? I think that\u2019s the question everyone has to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the wake of some clubs suggesting to CODE Sports that costs were a significant hurdle to more extensive mental health care, Browne spoke to Ralph \u2014 over four years after his comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have constantly advocated for room in the soft cap to improve medical support and to ensure all clubs are able to provide a safe, modern, legally compliant workplace,\u201d Browne told CODE Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery club has had to make compromises because the football soft cap was cut through Covid and it hasn\u2019t been restored to its pre-Covid position. I can\u2019t make any comment on the current situation, but I can say that club medical resources weren\u2019t able to be restored, let alone developed, after the cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another measure the AFL has introduced is mandating clubs to employ full-time psychologists across both their AFL and AFLW programs \u2014 although whether they\u2019ll be required at all games remains uncertain at this stage.<\/p>\n
What are Carlton’s four options? | 02:26<\/p>\n
But CODE Sports reporter Lauren Wood said \u201cquestions are already being raised about how this will actually work in reality\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great to say \u2018we\u2019re going to have someone there full-time\u2019 \u2014 they stopped short of saying that they\u2019re going to mandate them on match day \u2014 but I think the questions that are being raised in the industry at the moment are: How it will actually look?\u201d Wood asked on Midweek Tackle. \u201cAre we going to get industry best when it comes to these full-time psychologists? They can earn really big dollars when it comes to working in private practice. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of questions that remain unanswered at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to the sanction handed to the club, Carlton said it had provided a \u201cdetailed, factual account\u201d of its treatment of Hollands in Round 6, adding it had \u201cnot lost sight of ensuring Elijah and his family continue to receive all the support and care they need\u201d. But the Blues also declared: \u201cOur club stands in unwavering support of its medical and wellbeing staff, who continue to conduct themselves with the highest level of professionalism, integrity, and genuine care for all our players and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ralph said the Blues had \u201ctaken one for the team\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve accepted that $75,000 fine, but Carlton\u2019s not apologising,\u201d he said. \u201cCarlton is standing by the individuals involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if you can read between the lines there: \u2018We\u2019ve copped the $75,000 fine because we know that we\u2019ll protect our players and our club, but we\u2019re not really apologising for anything.\u2019<\/p>\n
Lewis raises alarm on Carlton’s list | 02:24<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty unsatisfactory review \u2013 and you\u2019ve got to say that comes in a long line of deeply unsatisfying AFL reviews. It\u2019s lawyers at 20 paces. The Carlton medico clearly was considering whether he would sue if there were adverse findings against him. <\/p>\n
\u201cCarlton has not conceded anything. The AFL fines a club, but no individual parties are really sanctioned, which is of course something that\u2019s a protective mechanism. And, of course, the fans are never going to know \u2013 and they should not know \u2013 whether he had drugs in his system or alcohol, but absolutely no detail about the failings of the Carlton people on the night.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Visual cues\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s pretty generic \u2013 their care of the player, the fact that the stat sheets showed nothing \u2013 yeah, I think the Carlton fans would be pretty unsatisfied by all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the sanction is another hit to the Blues, who sit 16th on the ladder with a 1-7 record under off-contract coach Michael Voss.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it the worst eight months for Carlton since the salary cap scandal of the first couple of years of this century?\u201d Ralph asked on Midweek Tackle.<\/p>\n
Voss whacks ‘bullies’ in Hollands saga | 18:11<\/p>\n
\u201c(Charlie) Curnow is their superstar, the centrepiece of the rebuild and the premiership \u2013 and he leaves them for a couple of first-round picks. (Jack) Silvagni \u2013 Silvagni, of all people \u2026 the third generation man \u2013 goes to St Kilda. Seismic occurrences across the trade period.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey keep (Michael) Voss \u2013 they probably pulled the wrong rein there \u2013 they\u2019re almost at rock bottom in terms of the rebuild. Now this \u2013 and a series of games where they just outright choke. It\u2019s a lot for the Carlton supporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll those decisions in their individuality, some of them are right and some of them are wrong. But I don\u2019t often say this, I feel sorry for Carlton fans.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A warning from a former club president four years ago might\u2019ve come back to haunt the AFL, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,12259,64,63,689,55,639,3423,3239,314858,309061,315401,10133,315400,315397,315395,15915,43010,10145,315394,2105,314861,314860,33693,146509,681,19080,314856,15631,312956,647,514,299620,7542,3257,315398,677,315396,315402,668,685,7889,40512,85,1122,139158,314869,1133,660,315399],"class_list":["post-652091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-andrew-dillon","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-ben-waterworth","tag-carlton-blues","tag-club-football-department","tag-club-president","tag-club-stands","tag-collingwood-magpies","tag-department-soft-cap","tag-ex-collingwood-president","tag-extensive-mental-health-care","tag-football-department","tag-game-changer","tag-garry-lyon","tag-generation-man","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-healthcare-governance-standards","tag-industry-wide-healthcare-governance","tag-james-wiltshire","tag-jeff-browne","tag-jon-ralph","tag-jordan-lewis","tag-landmark-moment","tag-lauren-wood","tag-limit-increases","tag-melbourne","tag-mental-health","tag-mental-health-episode","tag-mental-health-issues","tag-michael-voss","tag-minimum-investment","tag-oceania","tag-off-contract-coach","tag-pre-covid-position","tag-press-conference","tag-rock-bottom","tag-salary-cap","tag-soft-cap","tag-sports","tag-st-kilda","tag-stat-sheets","tag-strengthening-expert-capability","tag-trade-period","tag-victoria","tag-wellbeing-staff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652091","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=652091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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