Whatever she understood, good crisis management would say - own it - come out and apologise and then everyone moves on. If you don't do this it will linger and linger and linger and cause issues for a while.
Up to them if they pay the fine or not - but they should acknowledge there are many members who will feel like they are paying for it. I'm sure they can afford it, but it would set a precedent that may be very difficult for others to follow who don't have as many resources (e.g. imagine pickett's wife did something wrong). With that said though, they just need to follow the rules and as adults if they aren't sure of the rules, err on the side of caution. As the wife of the captain of an AFL club, she inherits an extra 'pseudo' leadership responsibility whether she likes it or not, and this is a massive failure.
It's the same 'externality' issue this whole COVID drives. If you act in your own self interest, you put a cost on everyone else. It's beyond selfish. Even if you disagree with the science, you have to acknowledge that if you are wrong you could be propogating this thing to go for longer and longer. Watching the US trainwreck from Australia is insane. You could see it coming months away.
I live in Victoria and (IMO) government negligence in oversight of quarrantine and now people going to work when sick (maybe they are in financial difficulty so would be beyond difficult) is driving a cost on me to be stuck in my house with my kids doing learn from home schooling. My daughter just did a 10th birthday with family on Zoom. It's not the same.
Acts like this from WAGs could cause the whole competition to be halted again, driving massive revenue impacts, further job losses and wage cuts in the AFL industry and no footy on the TV. I'd think there would be plenty of feedback from within the industry to have everyone pull their heads in - they are putting all their coworkers careers and jobs at stake. Imagine she came into contact with one other person with the COVID and that happens via contact tracing - do the Tigers now get kicked out of the 2020 season? - get quarantined for 2 weeks then have to jam extra games in? Who knows but its not a place we want to go.
What I've realized over the last few weeks (maybe I'm too slow on the uptake) is that too many people want to push the boundaries of what they can do / get away with vs taking an approach, what can I do to help this thing end as quickly as possible. This is another example of this mindset. Brooke has a golden opportunity to come out, own it, and put out a message IMO along the lines of saying she got lucky, but had the wrong mindset and they will own the fine. The positive kudos this would receive in the long run I think would get back the 20k and reputation.