Eddie McGuire doesn’t believe Hawthorn should be stripped of draft picks for its investigation into racism at the club.
Hawthorn is likely to be hit with sanctions of some sort for the Binmada report it commissioned which led to allegations of mistreatment of First Nations players being made against former coach Alastair Clarkson, assistant Chris Fagan and ex-player welfare manager Jason Burt.
The AFL made no adverse findings against Clarkson, Fagan or Burt but AFL boss Gillon McLachlan suggested the league could still penalise the Hawks.
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McGuire suggested that a monetary sanction would be more appropriate rather than draft picks being stripped.
“They had a problem, they investigated it. Now, OK, it might’ve gone off the rails there, but I don’t think they did anything intentionally wrong,” he told Nine’s Footy Classified.
“To me, draft picks doesn’t seem like the right thing. Why are you punishing what’s going forward? The president is gone, there was a board upheaval directly about this, the chief executive who was in charge of it is gone, they’ve had horrific reputational damage.
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“I just think sometimes in football these days, it doesn’t matter how many times you apologise, when is the end of these things? When can you put a full stop on?
“I don’t think it (the AFL penalty) should affect them going forward. The football team and the members, they had nothing to do with this.
AFL closes investigation into claims of racism at Hawthorn
“I think the intention was the right intention, the fact that they mucked it up, OK you can sort that out, but that’s an administration issue.”
Essendon great Matthew Lloyd suggested that the AFL might make an example out of Hawthorn due to the fallout from the racism saga.
“Do you think the AFL will look to make it the opposite, and they need to make a statement here?” he told Footy Classified.
“They’re not going to get Clarkson, they’re not going to get Fagan or Burt, but somebody’s got to pay for this, and it will be Hawthorn.”
There remains no timeline on when a potential sanction would be handed to Hawthorn.
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