Just saw the article (ie the headline) and expected to read a story about us wanting 3 kilos of skittles, but only the red ones.
From what i read one player asked to bring his puppy. A couple of others sent them some Coles receipts.
Is the AFL for real? How does this stuff get out of their offices? This stinks of the AFL leaking stories to the media to bully behaviour change they are not happy with. This is what they did (at a much worse scale) to the bombers with the drug scandal. Literally ruined families and lives
Whats that shocking about a player asking if he can bring his puppy? This is the world where people take their puppy to bloody bunnings & in the US, are allowed to have them in the cabin of a plane, if they buy them their own ticket. What are the specific circumstances to why he wanted to bring it? Has it been sick? Does he suffer from depression or anxiety and the puppy provides important emotiaonl supportl? People might laugh at that, yet we all keep saying we cannot judge or mock mental illness & he seriousness of it & how littlestructures of supports can be the big difference. Dusty has spoken at length about his struggles with it & his biggest support mechanism was writing his feelings down in a diary. Is that any less "weird"? Little things to some, are big for others - especially when dealing with depression and anxiety. Without it, you have deaths like Shane. He lost the structure of his AFL life and never replaced it.
Did the player merely ask if it was ok to bring his puppy & the afl denied it & the situation was resolved? Where is the outlandish twist to this story?
Whats that unusual about employee's passing on food cost while on a 100% work related trip also? I and millions of others do it all the time. Our pollies do it to the point of corruption. Again, where are the details which make this shocking? Are we talking about a couple of hundred bucks of food - or thousands? Am i seriously hearing the AFL bitching possibly about a few hundred bucks of grocery bills when we have players having to live in a hub 2,000ks away from home, for an undetermined amount of weeks to ensure the competition continues to make $250,000,000.
They kept acting like them being their is "a privilege". Its *smile* not. Using the "poor lives of Victorians" to show their apparent "entitles, spoilt" behaviour is bloody gross. Don';t use the plight of Victorians to try and turn these blokes into enemies - the struggle of the vics is not a publicity tool for you to use. I would choose my home over anywhere else - and nearly all people do, until the point of almost certain death. This is why places like Syria etc continue to fight - they would rather be home than a alien in another city.
Again, the public shaming on the salary cut. The players have accepted to play 75% of the season for up to 50-70% of their pay deducted.. Thats a big commitment & sacrifice. What did Gill and the other board members take? From memory it was 25%. Why do we accept that as being fair?
Honestly, i am all for the club just pulling the season. If the players decide they want to take a stand, i will support them. We are wasting our time anyway - there is no *smile* way we will win this year with the agenda they are pushing against us, and the subtle agenda they are pushing towards others. This is the year where a small market team will win, mark it down. We know how this rolls. Clearly they see this as being a massive chance to give QLD footy a big shot in the arm. With QLD & ADL footy in a ditch - they, like all big *smile* companies, cry victim in a crisis while all the while are in the background sitting in boardrooms trying to find a way to still make this play to their advantage, almost always at the cost and detriment of their employess & people, who have been asked to take the biggest hit..
This is either a reaction to us likely cracking the *smile* that they allowed a situation where Cotchin's wife was publicly named and shamed by one of their own writers (likely against the protocol expectation they sold us), or just a flat out opportunistic ploy to try and use this shortened "no crowd" season to grow the game in states like QLD where it has beena mess for the past decade. I dare say that when this happened the AFL breached a contract & the club & the Cotchin's could be threatening legal action. More to all this than we see, I believe.
Our value to them when we are not packing out the MCG with 70,000 tickets every week is NIL, clearly.
Also, comparing our hub to the NBA's is really really laughable. I nearly pissed my pants at Tredrea for that one. How does that giant *smile* bogan get a AFL personality gig - seriously, the former p[ayers we have commentating on the game these days are the worst i can recall. All could play footy - but are awful TV personalities.
This is exactly my beef with apparent "woke" corporations and being" serious" about the consequences of mental health problems, chronic anxiety & corporate or public bullying. The AFL have CLEARLY used all this stuff in the past to bully people into submissions & i reckon they are doing it now.
Lets look at their record in this area?
How many AFL careers & lives have been ruined in recent years from drug abuse - particulary from players who knowingly suffered mental illness or anxiety? the 2 Yarrans, Bomber Thompson, Hird, Laidley, Cousins., Kerr, Mainwaring... there are sure to be many more in hiding.
2 weeks ago we mourned the suicide death of Shane Tuck. Last year, the expected suicide of Danny Frawley.
Stop the horse *smile* AFL , its clear as day YOU are the leaks. Its amazing how many stories like this come out when a club or its players stand up to your horseshit
If the club has to pick between another Premiership or protecting its people, their families & our togetherness culture, then i would prefer us to choose the latter. After 40 years of following a club with the worst culture in sports - i value our new culture & the people who made that a reality over fleeting, trivial sporting success we might experience. Good luck to the AFL with their "*" season if the defending champ and the current 2nd favourite for the flag pulled out citing "player safety & wellbeing" as the reason.
*smile* the AFL
/end rant (for now)