{"id":753969,"date":"2026-06-23T00:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T00:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/753969\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T00:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T00:44:13","slug":"afl-news-2026-steven-may-partner-sachi-dade-legal-case-melbourne-demons-matthew-lloyd-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/753969\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026: Steven May partner Sachi Dade legal case Melbourne Demons; Matthew Lloyd comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Essendon<\/a> great Matthew Lloyd<\/a> believes the legal drama involving Steven May\u2019s partner and the Demons<\/a> has the potential to impact coach Stephen King more than the players.<\/p>\n

Ex-Demons star May\u2019s partner Sachi Dade is suing the club<\/a>, King and football boss Alan Richardson in the federal court.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Steven May and partner Sachi Dade.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

She has alleged three privacy breaches were committed across two days on February 4 and 5, her barrister Nicholas Petrie told the court via video link on Friday.<\/p>\n

The third alleged breach involved a Teams meeting attended by 15 people, the court was told.<\/p>\n

According to federal court documents seen by Nine\u2019s Footy Classified<\/a>, the vice president of the football club, Jeff Paws, has now been embroiled in the case.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s alleged Paws contacted May\u2019s solicitor trying to pressure her out of the legal dispute.<\/p>\n

Dade also took aim at the AFL<\/a> for its handling of the issue. The matter is scheduled to be heard in court on September 11, which is the Friday of week two of the finals. <\/p>\n

If Melbourne continue to perform the way they have this season, they could very well play on that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s the biggest fallout,\u201d Lloyd told Nine\u2019s Footy Classified<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a first year coach, the pressures on coaches are bigger than ever, in terms of the scrutiny. We\u2019ve already seen what\u2019s going on with Brad Scott and Michael Voss already this year, so the last thing a young coach needs is this.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe may also have to answer up to claims against them, it doesn\u2019t affect the players so much because they get on with business, but it certainly may affect the young coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jimmy Bartel<\/a> disagreed, saying his time with King as a player taught him the current Demons coach can handle pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was my captain in my early days at Geelong,\u201d Bartel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s very good at compartmentalising things, and that\u2019s the maturity of him, and that\u2019s why they selected him as a coach. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019ll be excellent at putting this to one side. I don\u2019t think he ever got caught up in off-field issues with coaches or board members or anybody else in the football department because it didn\u2019t really actually impact the way you went about your business.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Essendon great Matthew Lloyd believes the legal drama involving Steven May\u2019s partner and the Demons has the potential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-753969","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\/753969","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=753969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}