News Jason 'McGrath' levels drug-taking accusation at the Lions - Which is categorically debunked

[PattyKwasagun]

That's what we all said yesterday. The jabs are getting lighter though.

Regardless, though, it means that we probably won't be penalised - at least not in any major way - as a result of all this. It's no worse than the Maxwell situation, or Bock for that matter. Unless the person in question is still working for us, of course, but with the staff turnover we've had the past 10 years I doubt that's likely.

 

[Cousin Jed]

So it's not match fixing. That's a relief.​

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It's not nothing though. If we knew this was what it was, why didn't we just say so? For that matter, why wait until the CM discovered it?​

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I suppose it's possible the current administration wasn't aware this had happened ten years ago, but if they were, why didn't they just give the details to the CM in the first instance?​

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What did the club do when it found out? Did we fire whoever it was at the time? You'd hope so. Or did we just cover it up and after a while it became too embarrassing to make it public?​

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Still some questions over this. Maybe there are plenty of answers but to be honest right now it feels like the club has fumbled this one a bit.​

If you are willing to believe this poster this has been known about for years.

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threa...t-brisbane-lions.990390/page-14#post-27201699

 

[Bobby Beecroft]

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What did the club do when it found out? Did we fire whoever it was at the time? You'd hope so. Or did we just cover it up and after a while it became too embarrassing to make it public?​

Does anyone know when rules where actually put in to place to outlaw player & officials betting on the AFL. I have a suspicion that such rules may not have been in place as early as 2003.

While it doesn't look great for an official to take such action, was there actually a rule broken at the time is a question that seems to have been conveniently overlooked?

 

[Ceebee]

The for the Courier Mail to retract the match-fixing allegations.

That will never happen,They will keep going with this .

 

[Haso]

No story from the CM this evening. We probably have heard the death-sook now.

 

[ZoBlitz]

Maybe saving it for Sunday...

 

[Duritz]

If you are willing to believe this poster this has been known about for years.

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threa...t-brisbane-lions.990390/page-14#post-27201699

What he said is true. They showed an article that Sheahan wrote about it years ago. I'd be keen to see if it was discussed on bigfooty at the time.

 

[matwt73]

So it's not match fixing. That's a relief.​

​

It's not nothing though. If we knew this was what it was, why didn't we just say so? For that matter, why wait until the CM discovered it?​

​

I suppose it's possible the current administration wasn't aware this had happened ten years ago, but if they were, why didn't they just give the details to the CM in the first instance?​

​

What did the club do when it found out? Did we fire whoever it was at the time? You'd hope so. Or did we just cover it up and after a while it became too embarrassing to make it public?​

​

Still some questions over this. Maybe there are plenty of answers but to be honest right now it feels like the club has fumbled this one a bit.​

I agree.

This is less about 'will we be penalised' than have we done wrong.

I think the answer to both is no but it night have helped to talk about this earlier. A betting plungę generated by loose lips is the sort of thing that i imagine would result in 'an irate call from the afl'. So the CM may have had some almost facts, it light have helped to release a statement that cleared that up and dismissed match fixing.

But... After Essendon's most recent performance maybe clubs are running scared of 'getting on the front foot' with the press.

 

[chopperduck]

We, nor any other club, HAS to come public or answer to any media outlet flinging shit. The CM published a very big accusation with very, very little to back it up and wouldn't even hand over what little sources it did have. Why the hell should we come out and answer for ourselves every time some yahoo says something. The CM has digged up a non event from 10 years ago and tried to tie it in with current events to make it a big deal when it isn't. There is no match fixing, someone mentioned we were resting players and someone used that information for betting purposes, if that person is still in AFL circles, then punish them, but we don't have to answer, as a club, for their actions 10 years ago.

TBH, i'm sick of things like this being big news, if you bet on sport you take that gamble. Teams change, players change positions, if you know your shit well enough you can see some things coming, like the Merrett move forward and kicking the first goal. We are covering the betting agencies asses too much at the expense of the game and it isn't right. If they want to keep the betting side of things clean, than they need to look at the person who used inside information to place a bet, which they shouldn't be doing in the first place if they work for a sporting team anyway. Don't blame the club for resting players, we are allowed to.

 

[Skoob]

Perhaps they will investigate the night Mal Michael kicked an own goal. Trying to blend in with the opposition forwards he rammed it through the big sticks at the wrong end. Trying to throw a match? Did he have $20 on kicking a goal from the backline? Dodgy as.

 

[Hollow Knight]

TBH, i'm sick of things like this being big news, if you bet on sport you take that gamble. Teams change, players change positions, if you know your shit well enough you can see some things coming, like the Merrett move forward and kicking the first goal. We are covering the betting agencies asses too much at the expense of the game and it isn't right. If they want to keep the betting side of things clean, than they need to look at the person who used inside information to place a bet, which they shouldn't be doing in the first place if they work for a sporting team anyway. Don't blame the club for resting players, we are allowed to.

And conversely, if you ae a bookie and people with access to better information than you are placing bets, tough shit, deal with it. Be a better bookie.

 

[cefalu_instinct]

Correct me if I am wrong but weren't we also on the other end of the stick against Geelong a few years back in a game for premiership points.

I would be very interested to see the betting fluctuations during the week of the match when Geelong didn't bring about 8 players up to the Gabba.

 

[Ironmonger]

And conversely, if you ae a bookie and people with access to better information than you are placing bets, tough shit, deal with it. Be a better bookie.

Bookies will always have less information than the employees of the football club, though.

 

[Hollow Knight]

Bookies will always have less information than the employees of the football club, though.

That's a shame.

 

[Duritz]

Correct me if I am wrong but weren't we also on the other end of the stick against Geelong a few years back in a game for premiership points.

I would be very interested to see the betting fluctuations during the week of the match when Geelong didn't bring about 8 players up to the Gabba.

Yep. We were heavily backed, and won.

 

[Skoob]

Bookies will always have less information than the employees of the football club, though.

And in horse terms they will have more info than your average punter.
We're not talking about people colluding to produce a result, just an improved odds on apossible event that is still not able to be controlled.
Bookies and casinos NEVER lose.

 

[Antman78]

I can understand that players and officials get looked at, how come no one looks at the journalist and media people as having inside information, if it happens in our sport surely it can occur elsewhere. Perhaps they feel untouchable in regards to drugs, gambling and anything illegal.

 

[Bucking Beads]

I don't understand how the media think it is ok to publish a story without any legitimate proof but have a whinge at the ACC for how they tarnished all of the sports with no proof. Mark Robinson and all his buddies are flogs.

 

[MacMum]

The betting agencies need to be reigned in....they get too much publicity, too much influence over sport in general..

Very rare these days for a sporting event to take place without mention of the betting possibilities on it..its wrong.

What were the betting systems and regulations back 10yrs ago?...would only have been the TAB wouldn't it?

 

[Paul D]

Was Peter Blucher working at the club in '03? Could always pin it on him.

 

[POBT]

So it's not match fixing. That's a relief.​

​

It's not nothing though. If we knew this was what it was, why didn't we just say so? For that matter, why wait until the CM discovered it?​

​

I suppose it's possible the current administration wasn't aware this had happened ten years ago, but if they were, why didn't they just give the details to the CM in the first instance?​

​

What did the club do when it found out? Did we fire whoever it was at the time? You'd hope so. Or did we just cover it up and after a while it became too embarrassing to make it public?​

​

Still some questions over this. Maybe there are plenty of answers but to be honest right now it feels like the club has fumbled this one a bit.​

I don't think I agree with that Tom.

This is the information about match fixing that Hammo posted in his original article:

Jason McGrath claims to have been involved in fixing a match involving the Lions in 2003, another instance of spot fixing, and to have regularly received inside team information from Lions players just before games for the purposes of betting.​

None of that correlates with what is alleged to have occurred in the Geelong Wizard Cup match. I don't think is reasonable to suggest that the club should have come forward with a mea culpa based on that. There is no mention of an official betting on a match which would give the Lions any idea what Jason McGrath and Hammo were talking to. In fact, in my opinion, there is barely a connection between Hammo's original article and the Footy Classified story. ​

The second article gives a little more specific info about possible match fixing/use of inside information.​

The AFL confirmed the League's integrity officer Brett Clothier will also investigate a 2003 game involving the Lions with regards to match-fixing claims.​

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The Lions received an irate phone call from the AFL in 2003 following the game.​

This has a bit more substance in that it states that a game has been identified and says the AFL were aware at the time. However, It still refers to "match fixing" which is nothing like what occurred in that Wizard Cup game (based on the footy classified story).

Perhaps, at this point, the Lions could have come forward and said "We think we know what he is talking about. And here's the story from our perspective". But i think that is a questionable move. Again, the allegation lacks detail - no mention of what game it was, who was involved and what happened (ie that info was leaked about resting players - side note: resting players in a pre-season match....unprecedented!!). I'm still not convinced that issuing a mea culpa statement at this point would be the best move either.

If you go back over the articles, Hammo expertly or inexpertly weaves issues about rec drugs and match fixing together to make it appear that there is a den of iniquity at the Gabba. But looking purely at the match fixing matters, both the Monday and Tuesday articles contained about 2 small paras each about those matters. It really is a sideline to the substance of the articles which is about the supply and use of recreational drugs.

I would suggest that the Footy Classified story does very little to corroborate Hammo's articles. FC didn't say anything about drugs, which is the bulk of Hammo's stuff and, on the face of it, doesn't amount to either match or spot fixing either. My gut feel is that the club did not make a connection between Hammo's allegations and the 2003 Wizard Cup match. And, truth be known, I doubt Hammo or Jason the Reliable were even talking about that game.​

If we treat the FC story separately, then I think it is appropriate that the club and the AFL make some response now. But i don't think that the FC story somehow calls into question how the club responded to the CM articles.

FWIW, as I've calmed down about this and with the benefit of hindsight, I kind of regret the club going hard back at the CM. In hindsight, perhaps we should have been the bigger person. I don't blame the club for being furious and they were mainly talking to the members who were pretty angry too - so it suited that purpose. But as someone here mentioned, we need the CM more than they need us. Moreover, we did run the risk of having egg on our face if Hammo had something solid. Perhaps a slight toning down of language would have been preferable. As I said though, that is hindsight 20/20 vision.

 

[Ironmonger]

None of that correlates with what is alleged to have occurred in the Geelong Wizard Cup match. I don't think is reasonable to suggest that the club should have come forward with a mea culpa based on that. There is no mention of an official betting on a match which would give the Lions any idea what Jason McGrath and Hammo were talking to. In fact, in my opinion, there is barely a connection between Hammo's original article and the Footy Classified story. ​

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It's a fair point, but as you imply, Holmes and the rest of the club probably had a good idea of what was being referred to here.

For what it's worth, I think it's entirely possible that Hamilton knew exactly what had happened back then, and was playing dumb to allow him to write an article about a supposed cover-up. He wasn't always on the outer at the club.

Whatever the club's moral responsibility might have been, either now or in the past, to make this public, once questions about 'match-fixing in 2003' were being asked we needed to think tactically about how to approach this. Taking the heat out of this issue by telling the CM what we knew (assuming that what's being reported is the extent of it) would have been the logical approach, in my opinion. Maybe it wouldn't have stopped the CM from digging further, and maybe it wouldn't have stopped that mad 'drugs is drugs' article by Craddock, but they wouldn't have been able to squeal about supposed match-fixing and it being covered up.

Instead for some reason we decided to beat our chests and blame the CM for even reporting on this. It seemed like a dispropotionate response to me at the time; now it just seems bloody stupid. Someone on this thread summarised it succintly as 'come at me bro'. If we're going to effectively dare the CM to try and find more evidence, surely we need to fess up to what we know rather than wait for it to be found.

You say this would have been a questionable move. Well, I don't agree. I think it was inevitable that this came out at some point, and it took less than twenty-four hours for staffers to supposedly contact Hammo, giving him a bit more ammunition to weave his poisonous little web.

We were played like a cheap violin here. Hopefully this will be a learning experience for Holmes and the club.

 

[POBT]

Sorry Tom, I just don't agree with that at all. I think that the link is so tenuous between the FC story and the CM's piece. Hammo's original article effectively amounts to "there was something dodgy going on in 2003". He had a scattergun of allegations and gave the least detail about "match fixing".

3 days later, another news outlet publishes a story which has only 2 common factors with the Hammo piece - the club and the year. To be quite frank, I think the club would have been quite foolish had it responded to the original Hammo article by citing the Wizard Cup game.

To suggest that the club has been "played" is 180 degree opposite to my opinion. The CM published an article which was either ignored or scorned by almost every person. They didn't drip feed this story in order to rope a dope the Lions and they have not been vindicated by Footy Classified.

The CM is clearly fighting a lone battle - no other media outlet is taking up their cause. The only reason the CM is 'still in the game' is because it is a loudhailer in Queensland. It can shout louder and for longer than anyone else.

But I disagree that it has somehow controlled the agenda on this - the fact that it has had to roll out Craddock and Crutcher in an effort to give its story credibility says volumes.

 

[Ironmonger]

The betting agencies need to be reigned in....they get too much publicity, too much influence over sport in general..

Very rare these days for a sporting event to take place without mention of the betting possibilities on it..its wrong.

Couldn't agree more. A generation of footy fans is growing up who will think betting is an integral part of the game.

 

[Hollow Knight]

Couldn't agree more. A generation of footy fans is growing up who will think betting is an integral part of the game.

Remember hearing kids who would have been no older than 12 remarking at the footy last year about what odds the Lions were to win.

The only thing that caught me by surprise was that I wasn't surprised.