AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan remains stoic on the AFL's response to the tanking allegations made against the Melbourne Football Club, maintaining that the league was unable to charge the club of not performing on match day.
McLachlan conceded that Melbourne had made decisions that โmay have been for the objective of finishing lower down the ladderโ in the 2009 home and away season, but would not definitively declare that the Demons had tanked.
โTanking means different things to different people,โ McLachlan told 3AW.
โWhat is important here is to understand what the rules say and that was whatโs clear, the rule that people would say equates to that in the AFL is โnot performing on ones meritsโ.
โThe advantage of having all this investigation out here โฆ is people can see how thorough it isโฆ
โThe charge of the team not performing on merits on match day was not able to be sustainedโฆ
โThe players went out to win and they were coached to win, but there was evidence โฆ there were decisions made that were prejudicial to interests of the game.โ
The AFL boss was satisfied with the punishments given out at the time, being the heaviest penalties to ever be handed down at the time.
โThis was ten years ago, at the time no individual, club or official had ever been suspended before," McLachlan said.
โChris Connolly was rubbed out for a year. Dean Bailey for 16 weeksโฆ and the club was fined half a million dollars.โ
