AFL Bloodgate: Aussie Style

The Australian professional sports world is keeping a close tab on worldwide sporting scandals... sports betting, gambling corruption and now... wait for it, fake injuries on the sporting field backed up by corrupt doctors mutilating players to help them fake and down right cheat. Media Man and Gambling911 continue to deliver sports no holds barred, blood capsules, doctors scalpel and doctors overcoat undercover... a hunting we will go...Tiny Kangaroo Down Sport, Tiny Kangaroo Down...

No, its not pro wrestling "Dr Death" David Schultz, "Nature Boy" Ric Flair or ECW Originals style...enter Manchester footy, where BS doctors have cut up players for an on field unfair advantage.

This practice and some other unsavory manners not welcome by the king, queen or Australian Prime Minister in the waiting, have come under the watchful eye of Australian broadcasting and media living legend, Eddie McGuire aka "Eddie Everywhere".

The strongly opinionated, and super connected McGuire (James Packer, David Gyngell, AFL, Triple M, SEN, even Media Man) shares his thoughts...

AFL rule changes should stop, says Collingwood Prez McGuire, who has referred to the latest revelations in British rugby union's "Blood Gate" scandal to put forward his crafty case.

The sports media master believes further manipulating with the laws of the game could actually encourage cheating!

Referring to the "disciplinary hearing" in Manchester, England, this week in which a suspended club (spin type) doctor admitted she actually cut the lip (mutilation) of a player to basically justify a mid-match substitution, McGuire said comparable malpractice could take place in the glorious AFL.

"Once upon a time everyone looked at Hansie Cronje with an earpiece in his ear and thought it was a coaching aid. I'm long past not believing the most extraordinary tales, and I'm a big believer that if you don't want something to be tampered with don't tamper with it," he advised Fairfax Media, with leaks to Media Man.

"The irony of the rules the AFL bring in is that they lead to unexpected consequences and then they have to have another rule. This Bloodgate development overnight just shows you what can happen when you put in another rule. And the whole idea of sport and competition is to push the rules as much as you can in your favour to get the best possible result … and I brought the same thing up with Adrian Anderson myself not that long ago."

While 'Eddie Everywhere' tipped Collingwood was yet to take an official line on the rule changes proposed by the AFL earlier this month, the prez has some concerns and a lot on his mind.

"I love our game because it used to be the game that had no rules. Now it's a game that's got so many rules and people still know less about how it's supposed to work than what they did when they had no rules. I don't know why we're rushing into changing these rules."

It was in fact union's injured-player substitution rule, something the AFL is considering as part of its revamp of interchange use, that led to Harlequins player Tom Williams demanding that his club doctor slit his lip! The London club had already gone to extremes in the closing minutes of a European Cup quarter-final in April last season to surge Williams from the field and replace him with a specialist kicker.

It gets better folks....Williams was first given a blood capsule to fake an injury, then when suspicion came up about his complaint he requested the team doctor to cut his mouth. The doc, who used a scalpel cloak and dagger style in the change rooms to create the real injury, has been suspended from practice and her career could be over forever, which is a pretty long time. The coach of the Harlequins was boned over the incident, the club chairman resigned and Williams was suspended. How's that for collateral damage, fallout worthy of a Hollywood war flick.

Introducing substitutes to AFL threatened to open a "can of worms", McGuire said, particularly when "like-for-like" players could not be interchanged like musical chairs and you get the idea.

"Let's say you've got a ruckman or a centre half-forward on the bench and the bloke who breaks his hand is a tagger, and he's the only one you can swap for. It starts to make it a bit hard doesn't it? You'll probably keep the bloke on with the broken hand."

Capping rotations...a limit of 80 has been proposed by the AFL...could also be problematic to say the least.

"I don't know who's going to count them, what if there's a dispute and that sort of stuff. But here is the very rule that the AFL has got very excited about, for whatever reasons I still don't know." McGuire went on record with.

"Apparently it's to stop players getting injured on the team that doesn't interchange (as much). Well, they can interchange as much as they like. If they don't, their blokes get injured. Interchange more. I just don't understand it."

The AFL has points to medical research linking increased rotation numbers to the increased incidence of collision injury.

Collingwood, disputes those findings. The club says its high rotations has actually led to a vast drop in its injury count.

Confused? Yeah, us to. Don't shoot the messenger. With the blood gate elements you can understand why we had to share this with our loyal audience. Next week Gallic Football - last man standing - fight to the death... just kidding.

Punters, er readers, stay glued to Media Man reports via Gambling911 for more "can't miss" information on the Australian media, gaming, casino and political wars.

Greg Tingle runs Media Man International out of Australia and is a Special Contributor to the Gambling911.com website.