{"id":868793,"date":"2026-08-26T07:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T07:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/868793\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T07:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T07:36:19","slug":"from-the-pocket-geelong-is-a-club-that-pushes-its-luck-but-the-concussion-story-must-not-be-buried-afl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/868793\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Pocket: Geelong is a club that pushes its luck but the concussion story must not be buried | AFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember the Geelong concussion waiver scandal? Feels like about a dozen outrages ago, doesn\u2019t it? The Cats president, Grant McCabe, raised the issue on the weekend, putting the onus back on the AFL<\/a> to come clean on how much they knew about Jake Kolodjashnij\u2019s \u201cvoluntary assumption of risk\u201d agreement. By then, the alleged events at the Pullman Hotel had cannibalised the news cycle. By Monday, a country Victorian pub was issuing statements about player behaviour. By Tuesday, Geelong was newsworthy for the potential acquisition of Zak Butters, Toby Greene and Rowan Marshall.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the concussion story, both Geelong and the AFL have employed some classic crisis management strategies \u2013 deny, dilute, diffuse, distract, delay. Both parties initially denied the existence of the agreement, and pushed back on the journalist who broke the story. They then sought to confuse the issue as much as possible, dropping the word \u201ccomplex\u201d into every second sentence, hoping that the general public would be so bewildered at what this was actually about that they\u2019d quickly lose interest. They diffused the situation by framing it as an administrative oversight rather than a question of ethics and leadership. Sydney took care of the distraction part of the strategy. And engaging James Peters KC to examine Geelong\u2019s evidence continues to delay the findings.<\/p>\n

The Swans scandal was the last thing the AFL wanted, though it was convenient in terms of burying the Geelong story. But the rest of the strategy has been deliberate. The AFL has people in its corporate affairs team who have worked at the highest levels of state and federal governments. They\u2019ve worked in prime minister\u2019s offices and on state election campaigns. They have seen it all, and plotted out a strategy for every scenario. But footy throws up its own complications \u2013 club loyalty, intense public interest and media coverage, the cross-pollination of leaders from league to club, and the existential threat of CTE. Some of footy\u2019s scandals, such as the Luke Sayers \u201cdick pic\u201d story, have been utterly inconceivable and irresolvable.<\/p>\n

Jake Kolodjashnij after the round six match against Western Bulldogs. Photograph: Joel Carrett\/AAP<\/p>\n

The AFL and its CEO handled the Sydney scandal a lot more convincingly and authentically than they did the Kolodjashnij issue. They framed it as a procedural error, something to be flicked down to third man with a fine. But a fine means nothing. Geelong is a wealthy club. They\u2019ve reaped hundreds of millions of dollars from state and federal governments. A fine would be a minor inconvenience, a 50-metre penalty in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n

And it would obscure what has been lost in all of this \u2013 that it was much more than a compliance issue, or a case of shoddy governance. People who should have known better have said silly things. The concussion campaigner Peter Jess called it \u201ca position not better than modern slavery\u201d. Dr Monique Ryan MP said the league had lost its \u201csocial licence\u201d. Between hyperbole like that and Andrew Dillon doing the rounds of the various radio boxes talking about \u201clearnings\u201d and \u201ccomplexity\u201d, the opportunity to speak in normal sentences about this most important of issues was smothered.<\/p>\n

For this is about so much more than paperwork. It\u2019s about the moral and ethical responsibility of the league and clubs to protect their players. It\u2019s about balancing the competing interests of footballers, coaches, administrators, unions, insurers, lawyers and families. It\u2019s about individual agency. It\u2019s about the long-term viability of the sport. It is complex, as the AFL and Geelong keep reminding us. But that complexity should have been an opportunity to have a nuanced, adult conversation, not a way of shutting that conversation down.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s about something else, something that no KC investigation or six-figure fine can ameliorate. There is a perception, a frustration, and indeed a growing reality, that current and former Geelong people are running this sport. The slaps on the wrist for salary cap transgressions, the third-party arrangements, the connection with shadowy benefactors, the fireside chats between league CEO and star player, and the stadium built in part on the taxpayers\u2019 dime have all led to a wider resentment and distrust.<\/p>\n

This is not helped by the leadership crossover at both club and league. It\u2019s not helped when the AFL\u2019s former head of football, probably the most important role for players and fans, was the CEO of Geelong when all this went down. It\u2019s not helped when the current club captain was the former president of the players union. It\u2019s not helped when the former president of the club is now the chair of the league. It\u2019s not helped when the current chief operating officer of the league, himself a two-time premiership captain at the club, refers to his chair as a man of \u201cunbelievable integrity\u201d. And it\u2019s not helped when the senior coach, a man also employed as the \u201cchief of leadership and performance\u201d at a longtime club sponsor, claims to have no knowledge of what happened<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to From the Pocket: AFL Weekly<\/p>\n

Jonathan Horn brings expert analysis on the week’s biggest AFL stories<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In isolation, they can be explained away. In totality, they give credence to the view that Geelong is a club that pushes its luck, that straddles the line of what is acceptable, and that is subject to different rules, different penalties and different standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remember the Geelong concussion waiver scandal? Feels like about a dozen outrages ago, doesn\u2019t it? The Cats president,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-868793","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\/868793","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=868793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}