{"id":880370,"date":"2026-09-05T01:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T01:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880370\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T01:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T01:44:13","slug":"afl-news-2026-alastair-clarkson-opens-up-on-north-melbourne-axing-publicly-humiliated-comments-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880370\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026: Alastair Clarkson opens up on North Melbourne axing, \u2018publicly humiliated\u2019 comments; reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alastair Clarkson<\/a> said he feels like his life is \u201cshot\u201d after he was \u201cblindsided\u201d and his family \u201cpublicly humiliated\u201d by his brutal sacking by the Kangaroos<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

The club announced on Wednesday morning it would part ways with Clarkson with a year remaining<\/a> on his contract.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Alastair Clarkson.\u00a0AFL Photos<\/p>\n

Speaking to renowned AFL<\/a> journalist Caroline Wilson for The Age<\/a>, Clarkson said he received a text message on Tuesday from president Sonja Hood asking if she and football boss Todd Viney could meet at his house at 5pm.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn four years they\u2019ve never come to my house like that. In four years I\u2019ve never had one formal performance review,\u201d Clarkson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018We can\u2019t control what you\u2019re going to say, Clarko, but can you be diplomatic? We know you\u2019re going to have to talk at some stage, but we hope you don\u2019t bag the club\u2019. I never would have done that. They wanted me to be as dignified as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny deficiencies I\u2019ve got \u2013 and you know that I\u2019ve got them \u2013 to be absolutely blindsided like that \u2026 I\u2019ve got a daughter who works at Fox News \u2013 can you imagine how she feels? How we all feel to be so publicly humiliated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson reported Clarkson was still in a state of shock after being sacked, the decision to do so seemingly having come from a review he helped instigate weeks earlier.<\/p>\n

Clarkson said he was stunned by reports his relationships with assistant coaches had become strained, and that players had become fatigued by war analogies he used to try to create a culture of mateship and strength through adversity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that all my fault, is it?\u201d Clarkson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mantra has never changed, and that has been to have care and empathy to help players chase their dream. I feel like my life\u2019s shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hood and Viney have come under fire themselves for comments they made when fronting media<\/a> to explain the decision.<\/p>\n

Hood said Clarkson \u201cno longer (had) the belief from enough people at the club\u201d, before Viney referenced the bombshell allegations of systemic racism levelled at Clarkson from his time at the Hawks. No findings were made against any of the people accused of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat took an enormous toll on him for the first two or three years and in fact, I\u2019m not sure the scars have fully healed to this point,” Viney said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kangaroos bosses Todd Viney and Sonja Hood speak to media.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Clarkson said those comments in particular stung.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey ask me to be as dignified as possible, and then they do this to me,\u201d Clarkson said.<\/p>\n

\u201c… To sit there and say one man has lost his marbles in terms of the modern game. Wow. We\u2019re just shocked, and we just thought we were owed a little bit of respect in being informed and warned. Instead, they chose to dance on my grave like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision to sack Clarkson was signed off at an unscheduled board meeting on Monday night.<\/p>\n

“To adopt two of the famous coach\u2019s brutal analogies, there was no smoking gun which led to the decision. This had been a death by a thousand cuts,” Wilson wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alastair Clarkson said he feels like his life is \u201cshot\u201d after he was \u201cblindsided\u201d and his family \u201cpublicly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-880370","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\/880370","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=880370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}