News Eddie responds to Steele Sidebottom’s actions and suspension

[Gavin Excell]

Ed just can't help himself.

Just shut the <deleted> up!

You can't defend the indefensible.

Eddie McGuire gives lengthy eight-minute defence over hypocrisy claims over Steele Sidebottom

Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has given a rambling eight-minute justification about why his views on Steele Sidebottom’s COVID-19 ban were not hypocritical.
On April 29, McGuire declared on Footy Classified that players who break the COVID-19 protocols should be hit with a $100,000 fine and suspended for the season.

But following Magpie Sidebottom’s four match ban last week, in which he was found half naked after a boozy night in Williamstown and taken home by police, the Magpies labelled the sanction “excessive, inconsistent with recent protocol breaches and contestable”.

Speaking on Triple M radio on Monday morning, McGuire gave an at times confusing account as to why those labelling him a hypocrite were wrong.
“Let me take you through it OK? No one seems to get nuances in this world and everybody wants to go for the gotcha and you’re a hypocrite and all the rest of it,” he said.

“What was that, April 29. I think it was the Fremantle Dockers blokes had had a party or whatever it was the situation there.

“I was involved and have been involved in the war cabinet, so I was intimately involved in how much money was at stake and how parlous the whole thing was.

“We weren’t playing at that stage, right, so we were talking about possibly going back into hubs and we were thinking forward into those sorts of situations.



“So (Matthew) Lloydy comes up with ‘Oh there’ll be other blokes who do it’, we know that there was going to be transgressions. My point was that the AFL, I believe, needed to go hard from the word go, OK? That’s what it was at that stage. The AFL for their own decision and right or wrong, I’m not saying they’re right or wrong, but they decided that they wouldn’t go that hard when we had a number of transgressions including people ending up in hospital etc, they didn’t go that hard.

“My point then, as going into that was, you really have to go hard on this to make sure the players, who maybe don’t read the papers or don’t get it sometimes … you go hard to set the tone. They (the AFL) didn’t set the tone in that situation. They gave one and two week suspensions.”

McGuire said the fact that the Magpies had accepted the Sidebottom sanction proved there was no hypocrisy.

“Last week what happened was Steele Sidebottom, he did something ridiculous and he got a four week suspension,” he continued.


“Compared to where the other suspensions were, it was and the point that was made in quotes ‘manifestly unjust’ is the term that’s used that you have to qualify for if you’re going to appeal at the Tribunal on the measure of people being suspended.

“The bottom line is Steele Sidebottom and Collingwood accepted the decision so there’s no hypocrisy in that at all.

“I still believe that they should have come out, the AFL, and made it very, very onerous any suspensions of penalties that were there. When it came to Steele Sidebottom’s time, we looked at it (and) compared to what the AFL had put the table of suspensions, it was on the heavy side.

“It is the most heavy of suspensions. In context of what we believe and where we were last week, we agree with it. I don’t understand the hypocrisy.”

I see
Compelling defence

 

[Juddernaut08]

does anyone really care about the sidebottom thing?

a superstar in degoey may go to jail and never play for Pies again.

at least jordan wont have to change out of his jersey/prison uniform.

 

[Barnzy]

does anyone really care about the sidebottom thing?

a superstar in degoey may go to jail and never play for Pies again.

at least jordan wont have to change out of his jersey/prison uniform.

DeGoey is definitely not a superstar. He is only paid like a superstar.

 

[Juddernaut08]

DeGoey is definitely not a superstar. He is only paid like a superstar.

lol

 

[Black white]

does anyone really care about the sidebottom thing?

a superstar in degoey may go to jail and never play for Pies again.

at least jordan wont have to change out of his jersey/prison uniform.

Ratts

 

[Barnzy]

lol

Highest finish by DeGoey in a Collingwood B&F after 5 years is 8th. "lol" indeed.

 

[BBC1967]

Highest finish by DeGoey in a Collingwood B&F after 5 years is 8th. "lol" indeed.

And they continue to compare him to Dusty. LOL.

 

[SterlingArcher]

I don't understand how Eddie can say that the AFL didn't necessarily "go hard" when Ollie Wines got a week for a social distanced media interview over a fence? I'd say that's a decent punishment for a low risk offence in terms of shutting down the AFL.

So of course multiple breeches while plastered is gonna get more than 1 week. That's much higher risk.

 

[Whiskers]

Has anyone seen Steele recently?
If not, why?

 

[Black white]

Has anyone seen Steele recently?
If not, why?

Maybe he has mental health issues like jack

 

[woosha24]

DeGoey is definitely not a superstar. He is only paid like a superstar.

He's a superstar of the goalsquare. If only he could rove further up the ground, Pies might have won 2018.

 

[Boxhead_31]

Good to see that fellow media members are finally calling Eddie out on his BS

 

[Sonny Bonds]

McGuire is a joke and an embarrassment to the CFC.

But who is going to pull him up?

No one. Cause Ed is the self appointed Emperor for life.

This is why I feel sorry for his family.
What does FattyMCFATchins wife say to him?

When he walks through the door, does she just roll her eyes and tell him to STFU for once.

 

[tandino]

That one-man board meeting he held on Classified last week was illuminating.

Anybody else sit on that board Ed?

 

[PonsfordMagpie]

Lol.

Just waffling.

The man is a walking disaster. The fact that everything he says is always tied back to the club is hurting us.

As a legends member, I'll have no hesitation on voting him out if an alternative candidate comes along and presents a good vision for the future.

 

[Gavin Excell]

I don't mind Ed but he suffers from that affliction of having to have the final say

 

[Shane Heard]

I don't mind Ed but he suffers from that affliction of having to have the final say

I have a long held theory.

It’s about low self esteem and an inferiority complex.

Now a multi millionaire, he comes from nothing. A bogan cadet kid with a dream of being a footy journo who got a job at channel 10 for $100 a week.

He spent years hanging around Victoria Park and the nightclubs that the pie players frequently visited trying to get himself in the inner circle.

Then he gets the job of hosting TFS and soon enough he’s a house hold name and best mates with Packer.

Becomes President of Collingwood and gets a good team around him to lift the broke club out of the dark hole they were in financially and within 10 years they are stable and strong club.

Then gets the job of running channel 9 and fails spectacularly.

Then becomes a gameshow host because it’s easy money and you don’t have to be Rhodes scholar

He doesn’t do it much anymore, but for years he consistently remarked how he comes from Broadmeadows and how he comes from humble beginnings etc etc

I believe that the guy is not that bright and has a limited vocabulary and can’t articulate things too well and feels the need to talk over people to get a weak point across.
Even when he knows he’s wrong...he’ll talk and talk and talk until people give up arguing.


He’s like Trump. He just refuses to admit he’s wrong and will justify anything with mindless word drool.

 

[dean33]

It’s not Eddies fault, this happens at Collingwood, it’s just their culture.

 

[F_therest]

It’s not Eddies fault, this happens at Collingwood, it’s just their culture.

He was disorientated the entire time.

 

[Incarnate]

 

[Bombfire]

Has anyone seen Steele recently?
If not, why?

Wellsy belted the holy crap out of side ass.

 

[AndrewShawble]

Wellsy belted the holy crap out of side ass.

He landed in Perth today, video/photos in the news.

 

[theyellowsash]

Votes 5+ because he should be exempt from being able to go into the isolates hubs, given he is clearly incapable of complying with some pretty basic rules.

Losing the vice captaincy should be a given.

 

[AndrewShawble]

Votes 5+ because he should be exempt from being able to go into the isolates hubs, given he is clearly incapable of complying with some pretty basic rules.

Losing the vice captaincy should be a given.

Oh please, he’s been a player for 11 or so years, been a great servant. You don’t lose the vice captaincy like that. A few credits in the bank.

 

[theyellowsash]

Oh please, he’s been a player for 11 or so years, been a great servant. You don’t lose the vice captaincy like that. A few credits in the bank.

Getting so drunk you're apparently staggering around almost naked is bad enough. Add multiple deliberate and obvious breaches of what would be pretty straight forward rules (to them as it would have been explained to them) which threatens the viability of the competition this year, and therefore probably thousands of jobs. What if wells was found positive and gave it to Steele, who spread it to the club and then the rest of the competition? It wasn't a mistake, he deliberately broke the rules pretty badly and it was pre planned, which Dunn knew which is why he bailed. That is plenty to lose the vice captaincy over. What kind of example does that set to the younger players, other than as long as you're a good enough player you're fine to do whatever.

After Eddie's tirade when a couple of Melbourne nobodies broke the rules, I'd have thought he would agree. Then again, he is a Collingwood player so bad behaviour is acceptable.