AFL club presidents might still get away with things that footballers never would but even these non-paid so-called scions of society are now subjected to a higher set of standards in a world where Luke Sayers’ predecessor, John Elliott, would not have lasted a season.
When Sayers took over the Carlton presidency in 2021 he was still being forced to deal with the cultural damage and collateral schisms which had festered for two decades since Elliott was forced out after his club’s systematic salary cap cheating was exposed.
Elliott, who died in 2021, had his name stripped from a stand and was later banned by the Blues after alleging the club had paid hush money during his time to women who claimed they had been sexually assaulted by Carlton footballers. But even before all of that, Elliott was making highly offensive comments to women at AFL functions and on one occasion touched up the wife of another club’s chief executive, as I reported at the time. Even after that incident was exposed, there were raised eyebrows but little else.
Still, the now departed Jack, who for years also thought he was bigger than the smoking bans across football venues, was an outlier among his brethren – and it was very much a brethren back then.
It would be nice to say the same about Allan McAlister, the former Collingwood president who said shortly after the famous Nicky Winmar stand against racial vilification that the Magpies did not have an issue with Indigenous Australians “as long as they conduct themselves like white people…”
“Conduct unbecoming” was not a thing back in 1993, but nor was another Collingwood president in Eddie McGuire sanctioned 20 years later when he made his infamous King Kong comment relating to Adam Goodes.
Even though the Collingwood board and his various media outlets took no action, McGuire did apologise and underwent a racial education process through the AFL. Which is more than can be said of then Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett after his albeit significantly less damaging 2019 observation that security staff at Marvel Stadium were “new arrivals” who did not understand the game.
By then head office had a head of social inclusion on its executive team, but nothing much happened and the strongest pushback came from another club president in Brisbane’s Andrew Wellington who expressed his dismay in writing to AFL chiefs.
If only someone at Carlton had been prepared to self-regulate sooner after the lewd photograph – which exposed not only Sayers’ anatomy but ultimately his then shattering and now well and truly shattered marriage – appeared on social media 15 months ago for those fateful 13 minutes.
Sayers should have resigned immediately for the sake of his family, and in the knowledge that whatever his role in the scandal, his club needed to be distanced from it.
The same club that under Sayers’ leadership at the end of 2021 courted Ross Lyon for the senior coaching job but then backed away due to a comment at a Christmas function at Fremantle years earlier, which the AFL found did not warrant action.
Instead, Sayers battled on, telling friends – in what can only be regarded as naivety combined with hubris – that he had done nothing wrong and therefore could survive the scandal. Not everyone on his board agreed, and those directors, too, should have pushed Sayers to do the right thing.
Because Sayers did not resign, the AFL felt compelled to investigate the Blues president on the basis he might be guilty of conduct unbecoming. AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon should not be pilloried for this, although you can’t help but feel his predecessor Gillon McLachlan, a champion of the negotiated outcome, would have convinced his mate Sayers that he had to immediately walk away. Certainly, then commission chairman Richard Goyder could have stepped in.
That way an integrity investigation could have been avoided, an investigation from which the findings and the entire process have now become a major embarrassment for the game’s head office, with Cate Sayers’ defamation case against her estranged husband headed for the Supreme Court.
Sayers went within weeks anyway. It has been reported that Carlton also investigated Sayers and his role in the photograph scandal through its then compliance boss turned club director Chris Townshend. Carlton bosses say this never happened. It seems there was little communication between Sayers and his board during that tumultuous period.
In fact, Townshend, a barrister, was a middle man between the club and the AFL’s integrity unit and ultimately convinced Sayers the issue had become a major distraction for the Blues and he should step down. But the timing was poor, coming so soon after Sayers was cleared by the AFL, and smacked of a deal.
It is true that the scandal damaged Carlton and saw some brief board unrest, but it was quickly settled when Rob Priestley prevailed as Sayers’ successor.
Carlton have significantly bigger on-field issues. For the club’s angry and frustrated supporters, coach Michael Voss is the target and Sayers is a distant memory. Not so for head office, which began the ill-fated investigation with the best intentions but is now feeling the heat.
This is the last thing that Dillon – who is facing a number of challenges among his executive team – needs right now, and it looks disastrous for the game’s new media executive Sharon McCrohan. Never has the competition’s key spin doctor faced so much public scrutiny and been so publicly targeted by the media.
McCrohan, a surprise appointment at the end of last season, raised eyebrows because of her close links with Sayers for whom she initially worked during the PwC tax scandal. At least one club executive warned Dillon that McCrohan could pose a problem.
Not only is her style, sometimes prone to confrontation, at odds with her predecessor Brian Walsh, but McCrohan is powerless to help with this scandal despite her impressive CV and years of experience, because of her previous role. Her leading role in the saga is making some of the game’s governors uncomfortable. McCrohan’s supporters insist that she worked for Sayers as a favour over the photograph scandal and on a pro bono basis.
Whether or not you accept the explanation that its integrity and legal lieutenants had no reason to disbelieve Sayers’ version of events, which came in the form of a statutory declaration, it certainly appears that some of his claims were untested.
It’s also a bit much to suggest that Cate Sayers could have availed herself of the game’s “whistleblower” hotline if she was unhappy with his claims, given that it remains unclear just when she became aware of her husband’s deeply personal claims about her, her health and her allegedly damaged past. If the integrity investigation truly had teeth, then she should at least have been given an opportunity to give her side of the story.
That the AFL believes Sayers did not post the photograph – which was linked to a female executive of a Carlton sponsor – is beyond dispute. What Cate Sayers alleges is that the league colluded with Carlton and Luke to exonerate him.
But AFL scandals over the years have been punctuated by a “blame the woman” scenario.
Remember Lachie Whitfield’s former partner, who had reportedly alerted authorities about his behaviour? The targeting of Tania Hird during the Essendon drugs saga? The former Adelaide officials who blamed players’ wives for the concerns about that infamous camp?
For Dillon, McCrohan, her predecessor Walsh and the AFL’s investigators, the best outcome now is for Sayers v Sayers to move to the Family Court where no subpoenaed AFL conversations would see the light of day. The AFL wishes Luke Sayers would reach a settlement with his former wife, but by all reports he has attempted as much, to no avail.
For Cate Sayers this issue does not seem to be about money. Even though Dillon was correct when he stated recently that in fact it is a marital dispute, it is one that has moved way beyond the family home.
Compared with the sins of some presidents who have gone before him, Sayers’ deeply personal photograph was a titillating story – humiliating for him and his family and potentially embarrassing for just one other party. That it has moved into the corridors of power at Docklands can only be seen as an own goal for the AFL.
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Caroline Wilson is a Walkley award-winning columnist and former chief football writer for The Age.Connect via email.