Melbourne FC president Don McLardy speaks to the press after his club was cleared of any wrongdoing in relation to alleged tanking in 2009. Picture: Rob Leeson Source: Herald Sun
DON McLardy spent 14 minutes yesterday celebrating the fact the Melbourne Football Club had been "cleared".
Yep. Let's repeat that. Cleared.
So a $500,000 fine and two employees found guilty of being dodgy is being cleared?
Apparently so.
The Melbourne president was clearly pumped that his board and senior management hadn't been nailed for that word which starts with "t" but seemingly no one knows its exact meaning.
"We're pleased with the result that has come out today that has effectively cleared our football club," he said.
A minute later he repeated it again.
"We have been going through this for seven months. It has been an enormously high price our club has paid to get the result we did today which basically clears our football club."
For a man who'd just had half a million dollars walk out the door, McLardy was remarkably relaxed.
Remember this is a club that made a statutory profit of just $19,000 last year.
So going on that ratio it will take the Demons another 26 years to recoup the fine.
Plus they're going to be paying marketing employee Chris Connolly - he was the footy boss back in 2009 - a couple of hundred thousand to take a year off.
But we're cleared so all good, according to McLardy.
During this drawn-out process the Demons had intimated they would go to hell and back to defend their employees and the honour of this great institution.
This was when the "t" word was being levelled at them with both guns after former player Brock McLean was remarkably frank on a television interview.
Now, with their conscience cleared in regards to the "t" word, there was a feeling at the MCG yesterday that everything was good again in the world of the red and the blue.
"A legal avenue is the last resort, not the first resort," McLardy said about the new no-fight policy.
"We sought to discuss openly with the AFL the situation and we feel this is a resolution that we can accept."
The Melbourne boss went on to repeatedly describe the process as complex and that they had to abide by the umpire's ruling.
This was the same umpire who in the past few months they'd bitched and moaned about because of the heavy-handedness of the interview process.
McLardy even suggested by accepting the lesser charges the football club had done the right thing given the problems in Australian sport right now.
"With what has been going around in Australian sport in the last few weeks I don't think there is any doubt that all of us realise that integrity is the most critical part of our game.
"If we are caught up slightly in that, well, I think that's for the good of Australian sport ... that's a small price we have to pay."
Small price?
Let's repeat that sum again - $500,000 - which happens to be the third-biggest fine in AFL history.
Maybe the prez has got his marketing hat on and is thinking of getting a bit of the cash back by selling a new T-shirt line out of the Demons shop with the slogan: "CLEARED - WE DIDN'T TANK."
That's the front. On the back in much smaller text it will say: "But we did get fined 500k."
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