AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan remains stoic on the AFL's response to the tanking allegations made against the Melbourne Football Club, maintaining that the league was unable to charge the club of not performing on match day.
McLachlan conceded that Melbourne had made decisions that “may have been for the objective of finishing lower down the ladder” in the 2009 home and away season, but would not definitively declare that the Demons had tanked.
“Tanking means different things to different people,” McLachlan told 3AW.
“What is important here is to understand what the rules say and that was what’s clear, the rule that people would say equates to that in the AFL is ‘not performing on ones merits’.
“The advantage of having all this investigation out here … is people can see how thorough it is…
“The charge of the team not performing on merits on match day was not able to be sustained…
“The players went out to win and they were coached to win, but there was evidence … there were decisions made that were prejudicial to interests of the game.”
The AFL boss was satisfied with the punishments given out at the time, being the heaviest penalties to ever be handed down at the time.
“This was ten years ago, at the time no individual, club or official had ever been suspended before," McLachlan said.
“Chris Connolly was rubbed out for a year. Dean Bailey for 16 weeks… and the club was fined half a million dollars.”
