Wilkie doubles down on blackmail claim by AFL player’s family
By Danny Russell
Federal MP Andrew Wilkie has doubled down on claims that the country’s sporting watchdog was aware that criminals had blackmailed a family over their footballing son’s drug addiction while he was in the AFL’s medical model.
Wilkie held a media conference in Hobart on Tuesday and rejected an AFL statement that Sport Integrity Australia had never received information about the alleged extortion attempt.
New allegations of drug use in the AFL have been aired by MP Andrew WIlkie.
Wilkie said the crime gang sent a picture of the unnamed player to his parents and demanded they pay his drug debts immediately, or they would “destroy their son’s reputation”. The man is no longer an AFL player but was on a club’s list at the time.
“They basically blackmailed the family and said, ‘If you don’t pay your son’s debt, then your son will be outed.’ And there was also a menacing suggestion of him being harmed,” Wilkie said.
“I mean, this is a remarkable story in its own right about the tragedy of this one AFL player and the implications for his family.
“But more broadly, it’s exactly what Sport Integrity Australia has warned us of, that when you have widespread and ongoing drug use, there is a real risk, in fact, it’s a reality, that it will intersect with organised crime.”
When asked what proof he had of the blackmail incident, Wilkie said he was “aware of a photograph and testimony from the family”.
“A member of my staff has sighted it,” Wilkie said.
Wilkie told the Herald Sun that “we have seen proof that cash payments have been made”.
Despite Wilkie’s claims, SIA has told the AFL it was unaware of the blackmail incident.
“We’ve spoken to SIA and they have advised whilst the identity of all participants in the assessment remains confidential they have confirmed they haven’t received any information relating to the report of criminal threats to a player or former player’s family,” the AFL said in a statement.
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie.Credit: AAP
The league chose not to update its statement after Wilkie’s media conference.
“I’ll let people decide whether they trust the AFL or whether they trust Andrew Wilkie,” the MP said.
“I’m telling you in absolutely clear terms, that I ventilated concerns with Sport Integrity Australia about criminality, and I provided information to SIA about criminality.
“How else do you explain the fact that Sport Integrity Australia, in their [June] report, have expressed concerns about the intersection of criminality and the AFL?”
The family reportedly told Wilkie’s office that just days after their son was drafted at age 18 he witnessed senior teammates smoke ice pipes.
“Unless reform comes, the AFL will continue to have a regime in place that effectively protects the players from ever being ‘three strikes and they’re out’,” Wilkie said.
He added that the league’s process would effectively protect players from getting a positive drug test on match day, would facilitate ongoing drug use, and was not in the players’ best interest.
Melbourne captain Max Gawn was asked about the allegations at a media event on Tuesday. He said he was unaware of the blackmail claims, and believed that drugs were no bigger an issue in the AFL than they were in society, generally.
Asked if he thought the AFL’s drug policy was the right one for players, he said: “I’m not sure what the right policy is.”
Melbourne captain Max Gawn.Credit: AFL Photos
“I think the AFL said this itself; they’re going to tinker with it. They are going to keep working on it. And I think from now on, forever, this has to be tinkered every single year to stay on top of this,” Gawn added.
“So the answer to the question is, ‘I don’t know what the answer is’. But also the answer is, ‘I hope a lot of people are working on it to make sure they find the right answer’ because it is obviously a major issue in society.”
Wilkie put the AFL’s drug policy in the spotlight in March this year when he claimed under parliamentary privilege that off-the-books drug tests are carried out by AFL clubs to protect players from detection on game days.
The Tasmanian independent MP alleged players testing positive to drugs under the AFL’s drug policy were advised by club doctors to fake an injury to avoid punitive match-day testing.
By being unavailable for selection, players would circumvent Sport Integrity Australia, which carries out the AFL’s strict anti-doping code that adheres to the World Anti-Doping Agency code on game days only.
SIA’s investigated those claims of “off the books” testing for illicit drugs, releasing its report on the allegations publicly in June.
It found the processes did not breach anti-doping laws, but it cautioned that the confidentiality provision at the heart of the league’s policy did foster suspicion of “sinister motives”.
It urged the AFL to bolster its “intelligence capability to manage emerging threats to the game’s integrity” through illicit drugs and said the illicit drug policy needed to be overhauled.
The review “significantly identified there were no breaches of the World Anti-Doping Code through any Anti-Doping Rule Violation by AFL players or support personnel or that injuries were feigned to cover up for positive drug testing during the week by the AFL or club doctors”.
“I’ve been immersed in this for quite some time now, and I have seen enough material and spoken to enough people that I have formed the view, in my opinion, that this blackmailing that’s referred to is not one off,” Wilkie said.
“And it’s not just my view. It is one of the findings of Sport Integrity Australia, that there is a real risk of this – I call it an intersection between organised crime and some people in the league.
“Obviously, SIA would not have made that observation if they thought this was a one-off.”
SIA was contacted for comment by this masthead.
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