The Governor · @TheGovernorSM
31st Oct 2017 from TwitLonger
Trust written by Bruce Francis
Dear Mr McLachlan,
CC: @Melbchief @rickynixontoot @Thomo_Grant @crazythainame @NikGiannopoulos @WeAreEssendon @ChuckBerry1969 @Cornesy12 @Kevin_Sheedy @jeff_kennett @AlanJones @superfooty
Re: Trust
Today, The Age quoted you as follows: “I think it was a dramatic breach of TRUST (my emphasis) and incredibly poor decision.”
Most, if not everyone, would agree. But I suspect many people in the know would agree after trashing justice in the Essendon debacle, you are the last person who should be taking the high moral ground and be talking about trust.
The following doesn’t even scratch the surface but they are examples of a dramatic breach of trust by you:
1. After sacking Simon Lethlean and Richard Simkiss for dipping their wicks in the office ink wells, most people trusted you to apply the same standards to other transgressors or to those who dipped their wicks in a commercial partner’s ink well. Prima facie, the Herald Sun appears to have excellent evidence that an AFL official has been on the job when he should have been on the job at the AFL. If you want the AFL world to trust you, you will initiate an investigation into the alleged lying scumbag’s actions and then persuade him to resign. At this stage, the AFL is a law unto itself. Let’s meet at Audrey Hepburn’s and I’ll give you the name of the untrustworthy no-hoper.
2. On 5 February 2013, James Hird foolishly believed that you were trying to help him. At that stage you were already on the prosecutor’s team and your demands of Hird created huge problems for him. Clearly Hird’s trust was badly misplaced.
3. The media and AFL followers trusted you to tell the truth. But you lied when you claimed that Essendon self-reported on 5 February 2013. As ASADA and the AFL agreed on 1 February 2013 to conduct an investigation into Essendon, it was impossible for Essendon to self-report after 1 February 2013.
4. On 9 February 2013, when Prime Minister Gillard’s ‘hitman’ Richard Eccles asked you what you wanted, most people trusted you to say: “I want a well-run joint ASADA/AFL investigation that ensures Essendon and the players receive procedural fairness (natural justice).” Instead, to use a sports metaphor, you were guilty of ‘match fixing’. You told Eccles, ASADA and the contemptable David Evans and Ian Robson that you wanted the players cleared; Essendon punished; and the support staff held accountable – which was code for James Hird punished. As it transpired, everything you demanded at that 9 February 2013 meeting came to fruition in August 2013.It’s hard to imagine that there has ever been a greater violation of trust by a bunch of officials than those involved in that meeting. Sorry, that lot get in the grand-final with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Greg Hunt, Ben McDevitt, David Howman, Linda Dessau, Richard Goyder, Senator Duniam, the Ombudsman’s office, the Victorian WorkSafe Authority, WADA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport
5. Most, if not every Australian sportsperson affiliated to WADA, and ASADA trusted you to uphold the WADC but you trashed it by demanding that the Essendon players be exonerated through the no fault clause. The no fault clause was not applicable to the Essendon players. ASADA’s general counsel of 20 years John Marshall QC resigned because you badged ASADA into accepting your chicanery to breach the WADA Code.
6. As joint employers of the Essendon players, the players trusted you to provide a safe work place. Given, in 2011 and 2012, that the AFL suspected that the Essendon players were being administered banned, life threatening substances, and didn’t warn the players, it is impossible to accept that workers’ trust in their employer was ever more misplaced.
7. On 28 August 2013 you told SEN Radio SEN radio:
o “The AFL dropped the ball by not monitoring the Essendon supplement program after advising coach James Hird to steer clear of using peptides in August 2011”
o “The fact potentially though that we weren’t out there regularly monitoring is potentially a failing of the AFL.”
o “I don’t think that we can shirk it in every instance, I’m happy to take that on the chin in the sense that if we had gone out there every month and monitored it, then maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
o “People need to take various forms of accountability and I’ll take that.”
8. The AFL didn’t tell Hird on 5 August 2011 to steer clear of using peptides. More proof you can’t be trusted. Despite acknowledging that the AFL had to accept some responsibility (I’d argue at 50%) the AFL left Essendon holding the baby. Thus, proving you were not only gutless but untrustworthy.
9. You lied to Alan Jones and his audience during an interview with him. No one can trust a liar.
10. You lied to Jon Ralph on 8 August 2013.
11. In June 2013, weeks before the investigation was completed, and months before the AFL’s general counsel had decided whether to lay charges, you decided to ban Essendon from playing in the finals series.
12. During Justice Middleton’s hearing it came to light that on the 26 June, 2013, that ASADA’s Chief Executive Officer Aurora Andruska spoke to you and she told Middleton’s hearing that your comments were as follows. “Take points off Essendon, we need all the detail to get through that. Problematic if not [the] full report. Get the outcome we need. Take bits out that might compromise what we need.” I suspect most people would that was corrupt behaviour. I am pretty certain everyone would believe that they were the words of someone who can’t be trusted.
Mr McLachlan, I suggest that you set up an investigation to ascertain who was the untrustworthy mongrel who dipped his wick in a commercial partner’s ink well. Persuade him to resign or sack him and then you resign because I can’t think of a less trustworthy person running an Australian sport that has caused more damage than yourself.
Bruce Francis
PS I have been told Robbo knows who the mongrel is but for some inexplicable reason won’t write the story just yet.