Eels the worst of both Essendon and the StorM : Patrick Smith The Australian

There have been two recent volcanic eruptions in the AFL and the NRL and the fallout just about melted two clubs. You would have thought competent sport administrators would have said those catastrophes will never be allowed to happen to us. Never ever.Pompeii (1): In 2010 it was revealed Melbourne Storm had been fiddling the books to beat the salary cap for the previous five years. Punishment was swift and thunderous. The club was stripped of premierships won in 2007 and 2009; fined $500,000; forced to repay $1.1 million in prizemoney and stripped of its 2010 points.It prompted John Hartigan, former chief of News Ltd, owner of the Storm, to say: “We had some rats in our ranks. A small group of senior managers at the club orchestrated and concealed the extra payments.”The matters were referred to Victoria Police and ASIC.Pompeii (2): In 2012 Essendon began an uncontrolled experimental regime of peptide use. It went on mostly unsupervised by the men whose job it was to ensure player welfare. All up 34 players were banned for 12 months for breaches of the WADA code and witchdoctor Stephen Dank was banned from working in the AFL.When it was discovered the club didn’t know exactly what the players were receiving and the likelihood some of the drugs were banned, it self-reported to ASADA. Then it ordered an independent report from Ziggy Switkowski. His findings could not have been more damning.“In particular the rapid diversification into exotic supplements, sharp increase in frequency of injections, the shift to treatment offsite in alternative medical clinics, emergence of unfamiliar suppliers, marginalisation of traditional medical staff etc combine to create a disturbing picture of a pharmacologically experimental environment never adequately controlled or challenged or documented within the club or in the period under review,” reported Switkowski.Since then the club has lost a place in the 2013 finals, $2m, two presidents, one chief executive, one coach, multiple assistant coaches, a director of football, a football manager, a sport science team and God knows who else.The fate of both Melbourne Storm for their cheating and Essendon for their appalling governance should have taught every sports club official and executive that the risks of breaching two of the most sacred rules in sport was simply not worth the risk, fines, loss of points or humiliation.Yet the men who ran Parramatta look to have been oblivious to the dramas that so badly affected Essendon and the AFL, Melbourne and the NRL. Amazingly, they have been so reckless, so stupid that they combined the worst aspects of both Essendon and the Storm. The salary cap cheating was outrageous and good governance non-existent.In all these cases of mismanagement — deliberate or not — there is a common chant. The culprits only did it for the club: their loyalty to it and their deep adoration of it.And there’s the problem. Their ambitions for the club are driven by blinkered passion that interprets the club as doing nothing wrong. It is best shared in the outer with the fans where it doesn’t matter if emotion washes away logical thought and rational behaviour.If it is not that then it is a drive to be seen as the ones who rallied the club and led it to great glories.In football there is no higher non-playing honour than being the boardroom best-on-ground. How the sponsors, businessmen and politicians love it.But it is a passion and ego that blurs the most important asset a sporting administration of any code must have an abundance of. Respect.The people who ran the Storm neither respected the club or rugby league. If they did they would not have cheated on the competition. The code is too important to be compromised. They would have protected the club’s good name.The same can be said about Essendon. Too much respect was paid to then-coach and much-adored son James Hird and not enough to Essendon. Hird has gone who knows where and Essendon battles out a season with 12 players banned and replaced by toilers gobsmacked to be given a second chance. One of the country’s great clubs has been humiliated. Maybe beyond rehabilitation.Yet Parramatta watched all this explode and managed only to capture the worst of both volcanoes. So fanatical about their obsession with the club they made poor decisions at one a minute. Then no one had the courage to make sane this madness. So, in truth, Parramatta were sabotaged by men who professed a great love for the Eels but ultimately treated both the club and the code with contempt.http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/opinion/patrick-smith/eels-the-worst-of-both-essendon-and-the-storm/news-story/9b91169304dad013a2c74c338e81bcb8

Blinkers go both ways, dudes. Is he right about the worst of both cases? Seems so. His claim is that the common element to the two different cases is misplaced passion; overly-emotional decision-making based in a very narrow sense of loyalty. It's a blinkered or too hasty reading that replies "well there were no drugs and we got spoons not premierships", overlooking that point is the commonalities not the differences. It is for reasons of the dangers of overtly emotional management that proposals are floating about for merit based Board room appointments. But as I have noted before, if fans vote these Boards in and fans can't see past parochial responses (oh, he's Victorian...), is it any wonder Eels members have voted in these Boards? Isn't it time everyone, Board and fan, brought a little less emotion to administrative decisions?

Replies

Ed July 15, 2016 at 7:20am

Fuck off pat least we didn't inject ourselves with performance enhancing drugs and with storm they won premierships we won spoons so fuck yourself you Mexican
Alan Hunt July 15, 2016 at 7:22am

lol what a load of dribble, typical article from Victard and RL hater Fat Pat smith.
Rosemont July 15, 2016 at 7:37am

Yeah the guy is always dribbling about something.
Prof. Daz July 15, 2016 at 9:43am

Blinkers go both ways, dudes. Is he right about the worst of both cases? Seems so. His claim is that the common element to the two different cases is misplaced passion; overly-emotional decision-making based in a very narrow sense of loyalty. It's a blinkered or too hasty reading that replies "well there were no drugs and we got spoons not premierships", overlooking that point is the commonalities not the differences. It is for reasons of the dangers of overtly emotional management that proposals are floating about for merit based Board room appointments. But as I have noted before, if fans vote these Boards in and fans can't see past parochial responses (oh, he's Victorian...), is it any wonder Eels members have voted in these Boards? Isn't it time everyone, Board and fan, brought a little less emotion to administrative decisions?
1Eyed Eel July 15, 2016 at 10:34am

This is going to sound sarcastic but it's not. I love how Parra supporters bitch unrelenting about our club, but the minute anyone else says something critical we smack them down. I think that's the definition of passion.
slip July 15, 2016 at 10:50am

Cheating is cheating. Wtf is this guy on about. Get a job!!