Well at least there is one journo at the HUN who has a grip on reality
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Please Explain: Why Essendon should do a deal with the AFL now by: By Glenn McFarlane
From: Herald Sun August 15, 2013 2:59PM
DEAR Paul Little and the Essendon board,
We appreciate how hard you are fighting to protect the club that you love, but the cold, hard reality is that it is time to negotiate a deal with the AFL before it is too late.
Your passion for your club is admirable, but the way you are articulating it is not.
Your aggressive attitude and inability to acknowledge any fault by your club is putting Essendon at risk of being whacked even harder.
The time is right to sit down and sort out a settlement that is in the best long-term interest of the club, however unpalatable that might be.
There is no time to waste. The clock is ticking.
Right now, you don’t seem to be willing to cop anything – from the potential loss of premiership points, to the loss of future draft picks, to a crippling fine, to the possible suspension of the four key officials charged on Tuesday with bringing the game into disrepute.
Forget about the premiership points. They should be the least of your issues. You can’t win this year’s flag anyway. Your players have been incredibly resilient, but the signs of the past three weeks prove they are cooked.
By all means, you are well within your rights to fight for the protection of the reputations of James Hird, Mark Thompson, Dr Bruce Reid and Danny Corcoran.
And if you believe in them, as you clearly do, you should be prepared to back your men, who have undoubtedly made a great contribution to the game over many, many years.
But the best way to do that is through a negotiated settlement rather than arming yourselves with lawyers and threatening to take the AFL – and the game – to court.
That would create a runaway train impossible to stop. It would lead to a protracted, messy and financially crippling legal dispute unprecedented in our great game.
And it would drive a wedge between one of the most famous clubs in Australian sport and its governing body, not to mention the other 17 clubs of the competition.
As Leigh Matthews will attest, you can’t beat City Hall. The AFL will always get you in the end.
For the sake of this club that has been in existence since 1871 and has played such a significant and proud role in our game, take a big whack now - not a bigger one later.
A negotiated resolution – something that happens in courts every day – is your best option.
The thing that cannot be forgotten is that whoever was at fault – we get it that it is still debatable where the true culpability lies – your football club failed its players.
That is clear from your own club’s internal report, conducted by Dr Ziggy Switkowski, that found a “pharmacologically experimental” program that pushed boundaries and potentially put the club's most important assets - the players - at risk.
That’s why you have lost your chairman, your chief executive and a number of other staff members already this season.
You cannot escape that. You never will. And that’s why the AFL will whack you now, or later, depending on your next move.
Regardless of what might happen in court, a penalty is going to happen at some stage, and it is better for you to have a say in the punishment.
If you do play finals this season – something the AFL would clearly prefer not to happen – your form says you are unlikely to go past week one.
So here's my tip. Offer to sacrifice this year’s finals premiership points. Give up on the finals. Start afresh in Round 1 next season with a group that Jobe Watson maintains has been galvanised by the experience of 2013.
Take the fine that might come your way. Chances are, it will be less than the legal fees that you will need if you want to take the AFL to court.
Then there is the matter of draft picks. This looms as the biggie.
If the AFL finds the club guilty of bringing the game into disrepute, you can forget about any meaningful draft selections over the next three years.
If you do a deal now, you could try to wipe out this year’s national draft, which won’t kill you as a footy club.
The 2013 national draft is a solid one, but loses its depth after the top 10 or so selections. But next year’s draft is reportedly a cracker.
So it might be wise to try to gain some access to the next year’s draft and even more access to the 2015 selections.
As distasteful as a deal with the AFL might look to those at the club right now, and as much as the fans are prepared for the fight, you must know the club's best option is to do a deal before August 26 – and return to the fold as a chastened club still on reasonably solid footing rather than one that has been stripped of everything.
Yours Sincerely,
Glenn McFarlane
Read more:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/please-explain-why-essendon-should-do-a-deal-with-the-afl-now/story-fndv8t7m-1226697795190#ixzz2c0nGoXWU 
