Former Hawthorn President Jeff Kennett has urged the AFL to shut down its racism investigations, stating the club has done "everything we can", through his recount of the situation.
The ex-Hawthorn president has actively encouraged AFL Chief Executive Gillion McLachlan to shut down the alleged racism investigation that is active at the club. The investigation broke in September last year and has been drawn out for a number of months due to three former Indigenous players speaking about their experiences with the management team.
The central accusations were pushed upon former Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson, Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan and former Hawthorn football manager Jason Burt, who all have denied any wrongdoing.
Kennett spoke out earlier this month, stating that the investigation has become a "disaster" as both Clarkson and Fagan have told the media they have not been given the opportunity to speak to investigators.
Kennett stated that "there is no way the AFL, the Hawthorn Football Club or any individual should at this stage be paying any compensation to anyone," until all parties involved could share their stories in a proper court setting.
"It has turned out to be an absolute disaster for those who have made the complaints and for those who have been accused," Kennett told the Herald Sun.
"The panel has failed. It is going nowhere. To my dear friends Richard Goyder (AFL Commission chair) and Gill McLachlan, I say close it down. Close it down now."
The ongoing allegations and investigations negatively affected Clarkson, forcing him to step down from his position at North to focus on his physical and mental wellbeing, with Brett Ratten temporarily filling in.
David King, co-host of SEN's "Fireball Friday" hopes that Clarkson will return in the near future after he has recently been suffering from immense stress.
"He's going through a really tough period... Alastair has given his all. Clearly he was under signs of stress in the last week or two," King said.
"Let's just hope he can have a good break now and re-charge and return in 4-6 weeks or so."
In the absence of Clarkson, Ratten will temporarily fill in after completing part-time work for the club in a match day role.
Kennett, the former Hawthorn president spoke on Fireball Friday and clearly recounted the process of the allegations and how the comments were leaked to the media, which ultimately lead to the originally private matter at hand.
"Can we just establish the facts, please. We got a complaint in April last year by the Rioli family about the relationship they had with the Hawthorn Football Club. That surprised us and because we are such as safe workplace, we decided it was necessary to see if their claims were more widespread," Kennett said on SEN.
"Any employer would do that, where they found they had an issue. We had a review of Indigenous players and Indigenous people on our staff, to see whether the Rioli's claims had any merit or not. If they did, we had to address them.
"We went on a process, to establish the facts. Again, any employer has the responsibility to do the same thing. When we got that report, we were horrified to what was being alleged. Not proven but alleged, but because of our relationship with the AFL, we are bound to hand it over to the Integrity Unit.
"After we handed it over, it was leaked to the ABC, which meant that those accusations about those three people then became public before the AFL Integrity committee and us, had the opportunity to decide how we are going to respond to those allegations. The enquiry and the storytelling was not ever intended to be a legal process. It was just to get those past and present players who are Indigenous to explain their experiences."
After explaining the process that the club endured, Kennett argued that the AFL Enquiries Unit should not be handling legal matters and instead, claims and allegations should be set in a legal setting.
"I have been arguing for some time, that this inquiry. the AFL enquiry of the 4 people, should in fact be terminated. If the Indigenous families wish to lay a claim against anyone, do it in the courts where justice can prevail. If they don't want to do it, then the whole thing drops," Kennett said.
"The only place this could be resolved is either through mediation or through legal action."
Shockingly, Kennet claimed that he would not change a single thing if the issue was to happen again, even with the knowledge he has now obtained.
"The process had been correctly handled, there's no doubt about that," he said.
"Once we got the report, we did not ourselves have the power to be an investigatory body, we were bound to hand it over to authority. Hawthorn did the right thing. And I am very disappointed that many of the media, and others are saying that we did not," Kennet continued.
"I'm not trying to duck shelves here, I'm just trying to explain the process. I'm as hurt as those three who have been accused. This here is a good club, and it did the right thing,".
"I have no idea, but whoever has leaked the report is responsible for the damage that has now hurt these three people.
Tempers were raised throughout the conversation, when Kane Cornes and David King, co-hosts of the Fireball Friday segment questioned a frustrated Kennet and his belief that Clarkson had not been defamed by the club and the allegations.
"Where have we defamed Clarkson? We have not," Kennett said.
"I am sorry but please, please, please. I am happy to admit, there has been failure and there has been mistakes...We have never defamed Alastair Clarkson. We have never defamed Chris Fagan or Justin Burt.
"We had put in a process to make sure we are a safe workplace. We got a report from those and we got their stories, and we are in the process and we would have been, had this not got out in the process of addressing the information that we received.
"We've done everything we can to protect our coaches, we were not responsible for the leak."
It is currently unclear who leaked the claims and the report to the media, with speculations and suggestions circulating.
"I have no idea who the leak was," Kennett exclaimed.
"I know, there are probably two or three suggestions that are floating around but that is very different to having any proof, as you can understand. I know it certainly didn't come from someone in the Hawthorn Football Club, so the only questions was 'where else could it have come from?"
Earlier this week, Bernard Quinn KC, chair of the independent panel released a statement outlining why the process has been extended and that all three accused are not participating in interviews until they receive documents related to the allegations.