Mega Thread AFL: No Trades (READ OP)

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So glad that Colless had the balls to come out with this. There should be nothing that kept secret in a game that is owned by all Australians. I do t think there is any doubt about where our trade ban came from. Fitzpatrick is proof that being learned doesn't make you smart.

His comments on the AFL assisting Hawthorn in trading with GWS weren't surprising. It was extremely suspicious how that happened so easily with such a little return to GWS (or cost to Hawthorn). The best bit was when he said ‘Mike – get f....’.

This story is very similar to the phone call that that Ireland took from McGuire when Fat Eddie discovered that Nick Davis wanted to come up to us.
 
Hope this becomes a media shit storm. It's pretty pathetic and alarming that one of the heads of a large organisation would treat another professional in that organisation in such a manner. I wonder if this is a once off by him or has he spoken/behaved like this with others? hmmm
Could happen except one of the biggest media players in Australian sport was doing exactly the same thing all last year.

And no one blinked an eye.
 

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But what are the implications for us. Terrific Colless brought it out. And waited till he didn't have an official
Swans position. But the Victorian bully boys hate public embarrassment. They will want to hurt the Swans.
And in reality, no one in power in Victoria gives a damn about the Swannies ( except our Bloods supporters)
Fitzpatrick is just like a playground bully. If you say nothing or do nothing he'll continue to step all over you. Bringing it out into the open should make him think twice next time.
 
But what are the implications for us. Terrific Colless brought it out. And waited till he didn't have an official
Swans position. But the Victorian bully boys hate public embarrassment. They will want to hurt the Swans.
And in reality, no one in power in Victoria gives a damn about the Swannies ( except our Bloods supporters)

I wonder if the implications will be:

- Holding club meetings at Gillon's and not inviting us
- retooling equalisation so that the initial measures all specifically target us
- imposing trade restrictions of some kind
- creating a 'you can't have everyone' policy aimed at a single club
- changing F/S and academy rules with only the swans Academy in mind
- refusing to act while Adam Goodes is racially vilified

Hmm. Could be a roller coaster ride.
 
I wonder what made Colless decide to lob this hand grenade now.
 

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I wonder what made Colless decide to lob this hand grenade now.

No doubt he saw Fitzpatrick was lined up by Chip LeGrand, Patrick Smith, Caroline Wilson and Mark Robertson for his lack of a response to the Adam Goodes issue and the self centred response that followed and saw that he weakened so why not throw in another body blow after Fitzpatrick got thrown in the anti-Goodes camp to go with leaks coming from the commission.

Its open season now, even Eddie seems to be looking at having something to say against Fitzpatrick.

We have nothing to lose now, Colless is not "connected" to the club, just a direct business rival to Fitzpatrick in his role on the SCG Trust Board so he can say what he likes and if the AFL acts they come across as vindictive (not that the trade ban isn't that) and we have Jason Ball on the commission who will stay loyal to us if they want to try any funny business.
 
Expect the fight over the trade ban really kick up a gear now. This revelation was a very smart and timely move by the club and colless. The public now understands the vindictiveness of the afl and if it goes to court, the afl will have to provide a rule that has a penalty of trade restrictions that we have broken. Explains why we were so quiet when it was announced.

The best part is that we have attacked the afl and there is nothing they can do about it because "hey, we cant control every word that comes out of the mouth of our ex officials"
 
I'd like to think these comments from Colless are a sign that we're taking some sort of action over the trade ban this year but I'm not getting my hopes up. If it's just a big F U to Fitzpatrick then I'm okay with that too.

More like a big FU to Fitzpatrick and the AFL with nothing they can do with Colless no longer "involved" with the Swans. Handy proxy to have
 
I'm still not satisfied about our mere acceptance of the trade ban. We don't have anything to lose if we take it further by taking the matter to a third party. Even if we lose and the AFL use this to antagonise us more, that's just more evidence of corruption.
 
I wonder what made Colless decide to lob this hand grenade now.

I guess looking at it from his point of view, the Goodes controversy is a probably a game changer.

Until last week, he kept quiet as there was no point to making a fuss.

He commented occasionally on some issues in the last twelve months, but mostly left it to the club to fight for itself.

We were where we were as a club, and there was no changing our status in the game. It's not as if talking about a fundamental breakdown in the personal relationships between some at the Swans and at AFL house really helps us as we lobby in the dark over issues such as the way the Commission was handling our COLA removal, and the Academy changes, and our trade ban. Until he saw Goodes practically retire this last week, he probably just didn't want to complicate Pridham's job any further.

But after the non-performance of the Commission over the last fortnight, they'd probably breached any faith they had left.

Last week he was talking about his shame about the state of the game. This probably just feeds into that.
 
Also explains why Hawthorn weren't umpired in the grand final. And the very lenient treatment of Thuggy Hodge by umpires in avoiding citation for his thug acts. (harder to defend a low penalty, than to never consider a penalty).
How much is left for the Swans to lose?? There's a business as well as ethical angle to this that we probably don't know about. Really, you'd think Fitzpatrick was wealthy enough. Megalomania feeds on itself
 

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Mega Thread AFL: No Trades (READ OP)

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