MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - FEBRUARY 28: Easton Wood of the Bulldogs competes for the ball against Reece McKenzie of the Tigers (R) during the NAB Challenge AFL match between the Western Bulldogs and the Richmond Tigers at Whitten Oval on February 28, 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
Recently retired Richmond footballer, Reece McKenzie, has published a scathing Facebook post aimed at the Richmond Football Club.
McKenzie, 20, retired earlier this year due to personal reasons without playing a game in 18 months on the Tigers' list.
However, six months after calling time on his AFL career, McKenzie has broken his silence, labelling the club "an incompetent, dysfunctional, joke and embarrassment of a club".
He goes on to criticise football manager Dan Richardson's role at the club, while also slamming his treatment during his time on the playing list.
Read his full post below:
"When you have intolerable levels of anxiety and depression and have developed an eating disorder causing you to lose all of your friends all because of an incompetent, dysfunctional, joke and embarrassment of a club," McKenzie wrote.
"I didn't retire from football because of mental health reasons, I quit Richmond, I f***ing quit because if I had continued to receive the treatment that they were giving me I would have killed myself no doubt.
"No person at any profession deserves the treatment I received, they are a disgrace to professional sporting clubs around the world and it's no wonder they got someone else in to do Dan Richardson's job because he knows f*** all about football and f*** all about basic human care.
"When I was 16 I tried to commit suicide, but I failed, I failed because in those moment of agony I told myself that I would one day play AFL and that was the only thing that was going to keep me going and then one day I got there only to have my dream taken away by a joke of a club that doesn't know how to take care of its players.
"I am now a broken man because of this. Football was my life and now I don't even know if I will ever be able to return to the football field because of my anxiety.
"They even tried to silence me by signing a deed of release that was going to have a silence clause for life but instead I signed one that was for a 'reasonable period of time'.
"Well you know what, I find it a pretty damn reasonable period of time...f*** you Richmond, thanks for ruining my life, just hope you don't f*** someone else's up too."