Graham Cornes: The Paris Hilton Pies
Adelaide Advertiser
December 13, 2008
COLLINGWOOD announced an $8 million loss this week. How can an AFL club lose that much money? Perhaps, after so many years of making its own rules and holding the AFL to ransom, some within the club think that they are invincible; that the Collingwood name alone guarantees riches and success.
The reality, however, is that Collingwood is the Paris Hilton of the AFL. It is famous for being famous. One premiership in 50 years is not the record of a club that presumes the role of AFL superiority.
If anything, the seemingly vacuous Hollywood heiress has more substance than the under-achieving Victorian club. At least she turns a profit.
Any organisation can make a bad decision or a bad investment in, say, a hotel. There are always associated entrepreneurial risks about such ventures.
AFL clubs should never be entrepreneurs. Innovative, yes; bold, yes; but never stupid about where the money should be invested.
The club's mercurial president. Eddie McGuire, has assured the Collingwood faithful that the club has enough cash reserves to cover this crisis.
We'll see. Cash reserves appear to be disappearing quickly in the present economic environment.
Collingwood's other disappointing action this week has been to try to block Richmond's move to draft Ben Cousins. Having had the opportunity, and indeed the inside running, to take the troubled star in the national draft and choosing not to, the Magpies obviously don't want any other team to claim him.
To be completely fair to Collingwood, it is not the only AFL club that is protesting Richmond's stunning strategic move to place Graham Polak on the rookie list as a mature-age rookie, so that it can claim Cousins with a second pick in the pre-season draft.
But the Tigers have blind-sided Collingwood and the Magpies can only watch in frustration as Richmond take the proven match-winner that should have been theirs. They have only themselves to blame.
Collingwood's habit of running roughshod over the AFL has to be curtailed. The ridiculous situation where the club refuses to wear an alternative uniform to avoid clashing with opponents is an example of its arrogance.
The demand to participate in all the important blockbuster games places most of the other clubs at an enormous disadvantage, as does the favoured draw the Magpies have with the coveted Friday night games.
It is staggering, given that the team rarely travels outside Victoria, that it hasn't had any success in this new age of AFL football.
Ever since 1992, when previous president Allan McAlister miraculously negotiated that Collingwood would never have to play again at Princes Park - Carlton's home ground where the Magpies had an appalling record - Collingwood has been blessed year in, year out with the perfect draw. Still it fails, and worse, looks to blame others for its failures.
Eddie McGuire moved heaven and earth to remove the concessions that the AFL had granted to the teams in the developing football markets of Sydney and Brisbane - but only after those clubs started to show signs of success.
Richmond's move to draft Cousins is a brilliant piece of football cunning.
The AFL should breathe a sigh of relief, because it could not afford for Cousins to be left out in the cold without a club.
It surely will approve the Richmond plan, which ironically could provide an opportunity for the clubs which have a pick before Richmond in the pre-season draft to take him first.
That would be the ultimate irony. Actually, even better than that would be an opponent beating Collingwood in a vital game with Ben Cousins starring!
In the meantime, Collingwood, like the bully that it is, can only protest in vain.
It had its chance and passed on it. There's no point in squealing. Just go back and try and work out where the eight million went.
Cornesy will be back on air, 4-7pm weekdays on 1395 FIVEaa, next year.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24791756-12428,00.html
