Sir Galahad
Debutant
- Jun 21, 2015
- 84
- 365
- AFL Club
- Hawthorn
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...r/news-story/6953a2fcffa48f3b454312a3744b5c27
Last night, News Corp agencies started reporting on an affair between Michael Solomon and an unnamed AFLW Adelaide Crows premiership player.
Solomon is an AFL employee, currently serving as AFLNT CEO. His previous appointment was as Head of Operations and Media Business at AFL Media.
This affair has distinct parallels to the Lethlean and Simkiss affairs:
- Male is middle aged
- Male is currently married with children
- Male is an AFL exec in a senior leadership position
- Female is much younger
The Solomon affair is at least as recent as the Lethlean affair.
While the female is not an AFL employee, as in the Lethlean and Simkiss cases, Gil McLachlan last week emphasised that the AFL would not tolerate "inappropriate relationships" between senior AFL execs and "younger females" that are "in the industry".
McLachlan was deliberately vague, last week, refusing to specify which particular element(s) of the Lethlean & Simkiss affairs made them worthy of workplace disciplinary action. Nevertheless, the Solomon affair ticks all the boxes emphasised by McLachlan in his public statements justifying the removal of those two execs.
How has the AFL responded to the Solomon affair?
- Amid crisis, McLachlan left for an overseas holiday; he is nowhere to be seen;
- News Corp quoted an unnamed AFL spokesmen saying the Solomon affair has been evaluated and deemed to not merit disciplinary action.
Last week, McLachlan made clear that a new moral code now applies to senior AFL execs. He didn't attempt to justify last week's sackings on the grounds of breaches of workplace laws or breaches of employment contracts.
Last week's actions were not about removing two "bad apples". McLachlan didn't merely sack two of his three most senior deputies. Lethlean and Simkiss could have been removed quietly, with a period of leave followed by a bland, off-season "resigned for personal reasons" / "resigned to pursue other opportunities" press release. Make no mistake, this pair were publicly sacrificed, and induced them to make humiliating Soviet-style self-denounciations. In orchestrating this pantomime, McLachlan has also humiliated and undoubtedly caused unmitigated distress to a range of others (eg the mistresses, wives, children, other family members...)
McLachlan went out on a limb, on this march to the moral high ground. He has staked his credibility on the AFL's uncompromising adherence to his new moral code.
Well, his new code is less than a week old, and already the Solomon case is putting it to the test.
Either McLachlan sacks Solomon, or else the new moral code will be seen as a joke, alongside McLachlan's credibility.
Last night, News Corp agencies started reporting on an affair between Michael Solomon and an unnamed AFLW Adelaide Crows premiership player.
Solomon is an AFL employee, currently serving as AFLNT CEO. His previous appointment was as Head of Operations and Media Business at AFL Media.
This affair has distinct parallels to the Lethlean and Simkiss affairs:
- Male is middle aged
- Male is currently married with children
- Male is an AFL exec in a senior leadership position
- Female is much younger
The Solomon affair is at least as recent as the Lethlean affair.
While the female is not an AFL employee, as in the Lethlean and Simkiss cases, Gil McLachlan last week emphasised that the AFL would not tolerate "inappropriate relationships" between senior AFL execs and "younger females" that are "in the industry".
McLachlan was deliberately vague, last week, refusing to specify which particular element(s) of the Lethlean & Simkiss affairs made them worthy of workplace disciplinary action. Nevertheless, the Solomon affair ticks all the boxes emphasised by McLachlan in his public statements justifying the removal of those two execs.
How has the AFL responded to the Solomon affair?
- Amid crisis, McLachlan left for an overseas holiday; he is nowhere to be seen;
- News Corp quoted an unnamed AFL spokesmen saying the Solomon affair has been evaluated and deemed to not merit disciplinary action.
Last week, McLachlan made clear that a new moral code now applies to senior AFL execs. He didn't attempt to justify last week's sackings on the grounds of breaches of workplace laws or breaches of employment contracts.
Last week's actions were not about removing two "bad apples". McLachlan didn't merely sack two of his three most senior deputies. Lethlean and Simkiss could have been removed quietly, with a period of leave followed by a bland, off-season "resigned for personal reasons" / "resigned to pursue other opportunities" press release. Make no mistake, this pair were publicly sacrificed, and induced them to make humiliating Soviet-style self-denounciations. In orchestrating this pantomime, McLachlan has also humiliated and undoubtedly caused unmitigated distress to a range of others (eg the mistresses, wives, children, other family members...)
McLachlan went out on a limb, on this march to the moral high ground. He has staked his credibility on the AFL's uncompromising adherence to his new moral code.
Well, his new code is less than a week old, and already the Solomon case is putting it to the test.
Either McLachlan sacks Solomon, or else the new moral code will be seen as a joke, alongside McLachlan's credibility.
