Eddie McGuire rips AFL over Elijah Hollands findings as questions asked over job axings
The former Collingwood president has labelled the ‘punishment’ harsh.
Two former Collingwood presidents have shone a spotlight on a move the AFL made four years ago that looks to have come back to haunt the league and may have contributed to the Elijah Hollands incident. Carlton were slapped with a $75,000 fine on Tuesday for ‘mishandling’ Hollands’ mental health episode when he was allowed to play against Collingwood last month.
AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon and football operations manager Laura Kane would not discuss many details of the investigation on Tuesday, citing medical confidentiality. They said the league will implement a number of changes around mental health care as a result of the investigation, including mandating full-time psychologists at clubs.
But Eddie McGuire and Jeff Browne have questioned why clubs didn’t have full-time psychologists already. Speaking on Channel 9 program ‘Footy Classified’ on Tuesday night, McGuire said Collingwood employed a performance psychologist and clinical psychiatrist during his time as the club’s president.
But Covid hit in 2021 and the AFL had to reduce clubs’ ‘soft cap’ by millions of dollars to save on costs. It meant a lot of people lost their jobs, including mental health professionals.
“The clubs have been screaming about this since the soft cap came in, so they’re going to lift the soft cap now to bring psychologists into the situation,” McGuire said. “When I was the president of Collingwood, just before Covid we had a performance psychologist and a clinical psychiatrist because we were really heading into that, and so did a lot of other clubs. (But) they’ve got knocked off.”
McGuire said he believes it’s “harsh” that Carlton have received all the blame. “The clubs have been screaming about this, so I just think it’s a bit harsh on the clubs, and even harsh on Carlton, that all the blame is going their way when it has been proven that not having [adequate mental health support in the] soft cap has led to this,” he added.
“I’ll say it once again – I think it’s time the AFL sits down with the clubs and works out the framework of what you actually need to have to be a professional, well-run organisation and club in 2027, and maybe 2030, and get it right once and for all, instead of band-aiding everything.”
“Clubs have been screaming about this since the soft cap came in.”
Jeff Browne had warner AFL about job cuts
On Fox Footy, leading reporter Jon Ralph pointed to comments made by another fellow Collingwood president Browne. “Four years ago, he warned specifically about the dangers of the AFL cutting their football department soft cap,” Ralph said.
“They did it across Covid. He said those changes were ‘illegal and dangerous’ – he was spot on. As he said, clubs no longer had the capacity through the soft cap to pay for their players with their medical and psychological care.
“Clubs will have to invest hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars into the care of their players. Well, that’s what they were doing before the cap got cut by millions of dollars. Football will change for the better as a result of this, but would it have changed four years ago? I think that’s the question everyone has to ask.”
Browne told Code Sports this week: “I have constantly advocated for room in the soft cap to improve medical support and to ensure all clubs are able to provide a safe, modern, legally compliant workplace. Every club has had to make compromises because the football soft cap was cut through Covid and it hasn’t been restored to its pre-Covid position. I can’t make any comment on the current situation, but I can say that club medical resources weren’t able to be restored, let alone developed, after the cuts.”