Matt Rendell got his side of the story out on Footy Classified. I only saw a secondary summary in fairfax media. I don't feel it appropriate to pick sides on the issue except to say the way the AFL has handled it, whatever "it" was, hasn't been of the precision you'd expect of an organisation that so tightly controls its media image.

Bad news about Jim Stynes. Unfortunately he is the second player of the MFC's Irish Experiment to fall to cancer (after Sean White - lung cancer, and never smoked in his life).

Excellent tribute to Jim Stynes by Martin Flanagan (The Age)

What did he say?

He claims it was just a throwaway line to emphasize a point. The 2 AFL multicultural staff did not take it that way. Mifsud was particlarly offended. There is more to it which we have not been told. Crows also thought it was OTT. No-one is accusing Rendell of being a racist. But his comments were unacceptable in this day & age. The AFL were rightly concerned that their good work in this area was bring undermined.

It was a throw-away line to demonstrate a worst-case scenario that he would abhor. It was objectionable. But it was Rendell himself who was holding it out as objectionable.

The two AFL staffers need to man up and give their side of the story to the public, because all they (and AD) have been doing is drip-feeding innuendo to select journalists.

Rendell's given his side of the story and he looks innocent enough. He comes across as someone who genuinely cares about the prosepcts of indigenous footballers and particularly believes that the league is at point where something serious needs to be done to arrest what he perceives to be an unacceptable attrition rate of indigenous footballers.

The public isn't any wiser to why these two guys feel so offended about what Rendell said. It might be because they misunderstood the meaning of the "one white parent" thing. It might be because they found the idea of an AFL academy to better transition high school age indigenous footballers into professional football too paternalistic in this day and age. If it's the latter then they need to remember that Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for portraying just such a role in the Blind Side. It's White Guilt and the public loves that sh*t.

It's probably all a Frasier-esque misunderstanding but AD threw his weight around at AFC to deal with Rendell. He didn't have the facts, just the accustations. When the Crows didn't act fast enough, someone at the AFL leaked the story to the Age, presumably to force the Crows' hand.

The Crows CEO is culpable for being a chickenshit and just going along with what HQ wanted. A more capable executive would have gotten to the bottom of the story with his own man first without accepting the accusation at face value. A more capable executive would have ignored the pressure and dealt with it at his own pace. If he'd done that Rendell wouldn't have been forced to resign.

If any one of Misfud, the other AFL bloke who's name I've forgotten, AD or the Crows CEO had stopped and worked out would have happened then there would have been nothing to this. Instead they preferred the shitstorm

If the media reports are accurate, Rendell was given an opportunity to explain himself and apologise. He went away, thought about it, then came back and refused to do so. He then resigned.

Seems like he was treated fairly enough - assuming that process was the one that happened.

Playing devil's advocate. Maybe you can refuse to apologise because you didn't do anything wrong?

The logic demonstrated here is sound and the conclusions fair. I wouldn't go as far to say I agree solely because it operates on assumptions of what took place between Rendell and Misfud, the facts of which we'll never know.

The thing that I find baffling in all this, is I just can't see what motive the AFL has to manufacture this mini crisis. Who honestly believes the AFL is a racist organisation? Nobody. And it's not because the AFL pinned it on Matt Rendell. Nobody even blinked when the story was released, before we were given someone to lynch. It was the PR equivalent of Brutality in Mortal Kombat - you've won the game, you can put the controller down and nothing changes. Or you can make an example of your mate and shower the screen in blood.

Mifsud is going to be on the Marn Grook footy show tomorrow night. They're not known for their hard hitting interviews, but i'll certainly be watching with interest to see what he has to say.

Slowly but surely we're getting all the information that fairfax should've had before going to print. There must be a bright red telephone in AFL HQ with FAIRFAX written on it.

BTW, this is the original story that broke on the morning of the manufactured crisis.



Considering the timing of the source material - AD's comments on national radio, and the time of publication, this story couldn't have been slapped together in more than an hour.

Henrietta Cook passively accepts the arguments of AD without investigating any other side. Just terrible journalism.

It'll be interesting. My prediction: what Rendell said was on the face of it well-meaning but expressed insenstively. Ie/ nothing that couldn't have been fixed over a cup of coffee at any point over the last couple of months.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/r ... 1vkbt.html

Oh Dimwit...

Great pics from the AFL season launch in Sydney Town Hall tonight

And, I add, the excellent comments by Andrew Demetriou