Andrew Demetriou's tanking defence by: Patrick Smith
From: The Australian
November 01, 2012 AS the AFL investigators dig deep into the culture of tanking in the league - you would presume the inquiries would not start and end at Melbourne - there is another serious issue the AFL Commission must consider.
Andrew Demetriou is a commissioner as well as the competition's chief executive. He is unanimously considered the best sports administrator in Australia. The health and spread of the competition, its social policy initiatives and the power of the league to get its way make it impossible for anyone to question Demetriou's influence. He's d'man.
Which brings both power and almighty influence. And it is from this all but insurmountable base that Demetriou's stance taken through the years of tanking is worthy of close scrutiny.
It was Demetriou who defended clubs the loudest and longest. Yesterday, he told The Australian his position on tanking had not changed. "I don't believe teams go on to the ground to lose matches. I simply don't," he said.
A point of view that will give Melbourne comfort as its football department and executive are prodded and pulled by AFL investigators.
And any selection of quotes from Demetriou on tanking - no matter if it was the early 2000s until last month - verify his constant, long-term and passionately held position.
Given that clubs admit privately that tanking was commonplace as far back as the late 1990s, Demetriou's position would seem to have given the clubs the camouflage they needed to throw matches in the hunt for better draft picks.
Demetriou denied this vigorously when questioned by The Australian yesterday. Three questions were answered vehemently if abruptly.
Do you think you should accept any blame for the practice of tanking in the AFL? NO!
Do you think your constant denial of tanking has harmed your reputation? NO!
Do you believe you are in any way required to explain your position to your fellow commissioners? NO!
Demetriou said his confidence that no team went on to the field determined to lose did not give clubs the right to do exactly that. "That's just rubbish," he said.
If that was the argument then Demetriou is right. But that is not the discussion in which Demetriou appears vulnerable. It is his choice of definition for tanking that allows him to deny any blame that the practice flourished while he has been chief executive.
Tanking occurs when clubs decide not to win matches. They do not do that by telling players not to win, to drop marks, to kick behinds and not goals, to ignore opponents.
Clubs tank by making it impossible, as best they can, that the side they place on the field can win the match. Not that they don't try to win the match, rather they can't win the match. So clubs send any injured players off for operations. Got a headache? Then you are booked in for a lobotomy. Got a cough? Lung transplant. Niggles are deemed life-threatening and cramp possibly terminal. It might be the only time players willingly line up to clean out their joints. Demetriou calls that list management.
Then you can play some of your better players in their worst or most unproductive positions. This is called experimentation by Demetriou.
Then there is the trick of pulling in-form players off the ground if it is likely they might become influential or, heavens above, match-winners. This is called player development. Throw in the old reliable "youth policy" and you have the art of tanking as practised by AFL clubs.
Demetriou's argument allows for clubs to do all of these things. List management, experimentation, player development and giving youth a chance on the big stage. These, Demetriou argues, are legitimate end-of-season operations to prepare for the coming season. He does not give any credence to the view that, added up, they lead to tanking. "You can't prove any of that," he said yesterday. So Demetriou refuses to believe that the aim and consequence of all these different manipulations is to lose matches. Thus he frees himself of any responsibility for tanking by sticking to the narrowest of definitions:
Tanking is taking the field with the intent to lose the match. The broader and widely accepted definition is taking the field having made it impossible to win.
Yesterday, Demetriou said he simply rejected the broader definition of tanking. And would not even accept that moving players to the detriment of the team during a game was a tanking tactic. No, said Demetriou, that's experimentation or player development. Or whatever.
No wonder all investigations bar one by the AFL into tanking claims was shortlived and timid. It might be instructive that the AFL's only meaningful, whole-hearted examination of tanking claims (Brock McLean's infamous blind Freddy remark on Fox Footy) began when Demetriou was in London for the Olympic Games.
Tanking has proven Demetriou to be fallible and leaves him vulnerable to claims his aggressive dismissal of tanking suggestions gave succour to clubs to try it or continue the practice. If the commission is not concerned by this misjudgment, and believes its CEO to be correct, then it is not half as smart as it thinks it is.
And it thinks itself a genius.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/opinion/andrew-demetrious-tanking-defence/story-e6frg7uo-1226507834798
