Dictator lays down the law
boost ahead of the finals.
“We’ve got to make some honest decisions and say ‘what do we accept and what don’t we accept as a club’?” Mitchell said.
“That’s what we’ve got to do and that’s never easy.”
Joeys have had the Saints measure twice this season, but Mitchell has no doubt the minor premiers are beatable.
“All the pressure goes on to them,” Mitchell said.
“Who can beat them, I don’t know. I’m just hoping we get another crack at them. When you get out on the big ground it’s a different set-up and the build-up and the nerves can get to you.” GIVEN there are no elections or any shadow of democracy in AFL House, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise to see the boss acting like a dictator.
Speaking on 3AW during the week, AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan (below) said he was open to the idea of stripping accreditation from reporters who are “making things up”.
A nice idea in theory, for a man who studied law the broad speculation and impossible policing of such an idea smacks of ridiculousness.
While obviously biased as a member of the media, I can’t see a world in which that plan would work.
Would McLachlan set aside funds for some kind of Media Watch tribunal, combing through all journalist reports to find falsehoods?
Where does it start and end, would chief football writers be judged on the same spectrum as volunteer bloggers?
And has the footy chief thought about the fact that stripping accreditation wouldn’t have disallowed Brad Hardie from entering a Perth radio studio to air his alleged lie regarding Ross Lyon’s links to Collingwood?
The media has its own independent tribunal, if Lyon was so aggrieved he is well within his right to take Hardie to court. As Mark Robinson said on SEN’s Crunch Time program, this idea could change the league from the “Australian Football League into the North Korean Football League”.
McLachlan has done a reasonable job since taking the top job, noticeably steering the extremely successful AFLW through its first season success and fighting some battles of his own, but this step makes him a clear dictator over our league.
Nobody is asking for the AFL, an organisation with its own obvious internal problems, to take on another task and enforce its own bizarre form of the law.
A free media makes for a better game and while all reports aren’t perfect, McLachlan’s salary would have a couple fewer zeros on board without the media.
Let’s just hope Gillon doesn’t read this.
–JOSH BARNES