AFL boss calls for zero tolerance on players’ poor behaviour in wake of Swans scandal

AFL Commission chair Craig Drummond has declared players must abide by the competition’s high standards of behaviour or they will not have a place in professional Australian rules football.

The comments follow a police investigation in an allegation of sexual assault at the Sydney Swans’ hotel in Melbourne last month. Separate to the police investigation into that matter, five players were stood down by the club for the rest of the season for drinking and inviting women to their hotel room.

The AFL has also sanctioned the players, barring them from consideration for All Australian honours. “We don’t have any and should not have any tolerance for poor behaviour,” Drummond said at the SportNXT conference in Melbourne.

“It’s not just about getting paid lots of money, although that certainly is an aspect to it, but … they’re public figures. We have, and they should have, and their clubs should have, a set of values and expectations that these young men and women adhere to, and if you don’t want to adhere to those values and expectations, then there’s other opportunities outside sport.”

Drummond, the former Geelong president, was appointed chair of the commission in March to fill the place of the retiring Richard Goyder. Drummond became embroiled in the controversy last month around the brain injury waiver signed by Cats defender Jake Kolodjashnij, given it was agreed during his tenure.

The former Wesfarmers chief executive said the AFL’s standards must be applied equally to administrators and staff. “We need to enforce our standards and our values, both at a club level and for managers with their players, for the players’ association (AFLPA) with their players, for clubs with their players, for the AFL. And it’s not just players, it’s also administrators, it’s staff within the AFL system, within clubs that we do need to maintain those sort of standards.”

Drummond recused himself as the AFL Commission ordered an independent report into the Kolodjashnij waiver and considered sanctions. Geelong were ultimately fined $100,000 for failing to lodge the waiver with the AFL and AFLPA.

“When you have crisis, you need to learn from it,” he said. “I’ve had 45 years in a business career, and I think you always need to make sure you have the facts first.

“You need to also bring, depending on what the situation is, a level of independence to these issues. So if you’re doing any reviews, I think they need to be scrutinised by independents, more so than necessarily sort of marking your own homework.”

Drummond also used the opportunity at the conference to express his priorities as commissioner. They include continuing to grow the game in New South Wales and Queensland and not connecting with the non-Australian-born portion of the population.

He also flagged the addition of Tasmania in 2028 might prompt a reworking of the schedule, adding the AFL is even looking at shortening the length of matches, which typically take three hours. “We do talk about whether we should have a shorter game,” he said.

“If we want to have more games, we probably need a shorter game, and most football people would say, and players certainly, and the PA [players’ association] and others would say, would we’re probably just about maxed out on the number of minutes that players are playing [per year].”

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