{"id":393170,"date":"2026-04-23T03:51:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T03:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/393170\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T03:51:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T03:51:14","slug":"carlton-blues-coach-defends-club-amid-elijah-hollands-investigation-claims-of-bullying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/393170\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlton Blues coach defends club amid Elijah Hollands investigation, claims of bullying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carlton coach Michael Voss has launched an impassioned and emotional defence of his club, claiming Blues staffers have been \u201cbullied\u201d during \u201cball-by-ball\u201d commentary on the fallout to Elijah Hollands\u2019 mental health episode<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters on Thursday during an at-times tense and combative press conference, Voss remained tight-lipped when asked about the Blues\u2019 decision to play Hollands last Thursday.<\/p>\n

Watch every match of every round of the AFL Premiership Season LIVE and ad-break free during play on FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n

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While there\u2019d been speculation the Blues would complete and hand over their findings of their investigation into the circumstances around Hollands\u2019 fitness to play against Collingwood<\/a> to the AFL on Thursday, Voss stressed \u201cspeed is not the answer\u201d and urged everyone to \u201clet that process play out\u201d.<\/p>\n

Voss said he\u2019d been communicating through Hollands\u2019 family \u2013 rather than with the player himself \u2013 in recent days following his admission to hospital on Monday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important that we keep the distance and space right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere certainly was an immediate follow up, but I don\u2019t want it to necessarily add to all that commentary.<\/p>\n

Michael Voss, Senior Coach of the Blues. Picture: y Daniel Pockett\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we also need to acknowledge is that Elijah two years ago, or thereabouts, showed enormous courage to come forward and talk about his challenges and his issues. We all know that\u2019s the first point that is the most significant, almost.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last couple of years haven\u2019t been smooth-sailing for him or us. But what we have done \u2013 and our team of people have done \u2013 is provided amazing mentoring, counselling, guidance, specialists and professionals, both inside and out \u2013 all for the opportunity for a young man to be able to have a career.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll through the discussions that I\u2019ve had with \u2018Lij\u2019 has been very little to do about football and everything to do about life. We talk about how healthy he needs to be, the type of life he wants to live, who he wants to be \u2013 and then, ultimately, when you get those things right, now we can talk about the footballer.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I don\u2019t think you should also leave out here and say that there has not been amazing care, love, support, empathy, accountability, throughout this whole process. So when we have challenging times like what we did over the weekend and you start to sift through this information you just cannot possibly come to the conclusion that is about care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hollands’ quarter break chats revealed | 03:16<\/p>\n

Voss said the club accepted it needed to look at its own processes, but wouldn\u2019t be drawn on specifics around resources the Blues needed on matchday.<\/p>\n

The Blues boss said he was \u201cmore than comfortable\u201d with those at the Blues who\u2019d been entrusted with caring for Carlton players, declaring: \u201cI\u2019m proud of my people and the process itself will take care of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voss then lamented how Hollands\u2019 \u201cprivate challenge\u201d had quickly turned into a \u201cpublic event\u201d before declaring the Blues hadn\u2019t failed their player.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commentary, the conversation, the ball-by-ball play, we\u2019ve unfortunately made it that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in some ways \u2013 I\u2019ll be really honest \u2013 it\u2019s felt like bordering on bullying.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a journalist attempted to ask a follow-up question, Voss put his hand up and said: \u201cSorry, you\u2019ve spoken, I\u2019ll speak.<\/p>\n

Elijah Hollands admitted to hospital | 02:44<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you start to think about that is a concept, about our people, that\u2019s really important. That\u2019s who I care about the most. So, rather than show compassion and empathy through a really difficult situation, we are being really judgmental with knowing little facts, without understanding history and background and we\u2019ve drawn our own outcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t judge that in a binary way. It\u2019s complex. It\u2019s situational. So we\u2019ve got to find that middle ground between that type of care, but also providing the support that we need and the processing behind it. I think we acknowledge that, but that\u2019s an industry conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to have this proper conversation about mental health, then let\u2019s have it \u2026 and the healthy conversation will be how we support our people in an environment that absolutely demands so much from our people and having a healthy respect between what you need to report on the game and what we need to provide in our environment to our players.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I won\u2019t solve that here. I just won\u2019t. Because the people that are in charge of the game are largely the biggest ones that can make the significant change that\u2019s needed. It\u2019s not the coach of the Carlton Football Club.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dal Santo: “We need to be careful” | 00:59<\/p>\n

Asked to elaborate on he believed had been bullied, Voss said: \u201cI think our people have been bullied and I think we bully for outcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I\u2019d just say is that we need to take into consideration the people who are involved in this. I mean, this impacts families \u2026 it effects a lot of people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to make sure that we have privacy right throughout this. You can have your commentary \u2013 that\u2019s what you do \u2013 what we are charged to do is ensure that we maintain the privacy of the player. If that means that there\u2019s judgment in behind that towards me and there\u2019s a few bullets that needs to come our way, will we take it \u2013 because privacy is the utmost importance for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlton will travel to Perth for its Anzac Day clash against in-form Fremantle at Optus Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlton coach Michael Voss has launched an impassioned and emotional defence of his club, claiming Blues staffers have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[203147,203152,203153,201666,203144,203149,199528,134,203150,203146,203151,554,203148,555,158850,111,139,69,203145,40877],"class_list":{"0":"post-393170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ball-by-ball-play","9":"tag-ben-waterworth","10":"tag-binary-way","11":"tag-carlton-blues","12":"tag-conference-video","13":"tag-emotional-defence","14":"tag-follow-up-question","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-healthy-conversation","17":"tag-impacts-families","18":"tag-industry-conversation","19":"tag-mental-health","20":"tag-mental-health-episode","21":"tag-mentalhealth","22":"tag-michael-voss","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-nz","26":"tag-utmost-importance","27":"tag-young-man"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}