It's all falling apart for the Dees

[Grantysghost]

Petracca stays she goes that was the deal.

[hujsh]

She was never going to survive that train wreck interview.

Danny's gossip from Gawn was spot on

[ledge]

She was that bad at an interview imagine what she was like in her job ?
I have seen some terrible managers in my life and you seriously shake your head and wonder how they got there, gift of the gab tends to work for a while but they get found out and move to the same role at another company just before shit hits fan

[Axe Man]

Michael Warner: Why Gary Pert can’t spin his way out of Melbourne Demons’ ‘sh--show’ despite reviews

The Demons announced an external review into the ‘sh--show’ at the club. The problem, writes MICHAEL WARNER, is the review is about as external as your intestines.

Buried away in a Supreme Court affidavit is a claim that Melbourne chief executive Gary Pert can get football journalists “to run with anything I want”.

“The one thing I can do is control the media, I can control the media and the messaging, that is the one thing I can do,” Pert is said to have declared amid the murky exit of Demons’ president Glen Bartlett in April 2021.

But surely not even Pert can spin his way out of the latest Melbourne sh--show.

Revelations on Channel 7 on Sunday night that the board had backflipped and agreed to an “external review” into its operations, led by All Blacks leadership consultant Darren Shand, were met with applause by frustrated Demons fans.

At least until the Herald Sun’s Jay Clark revealed an hour later that Pert and interim Demons president Brad Green would sit alongside Shand on the review panel, which makes it about as external as your intestines.

There’s a sense that Pert and the club’s top brass believe they can survive the fallout from another season of hell due to Kate Roffey’s decision to walk away on Friday night.

Pert, we are told, successfully completed an internal review at the end of season 2020, resulting in a glorious premiership.

It’s a good line, but overlooks the fact that Pert’s review also triggered legal action from the club’s long-time doctor Zeeshan Arain, who was sacked just days after blowing the whistle on the club’s alleged cultural problems.

When Bartlett became aware of Dr Arain’s allegations an investigation was launched, resulting in a six-figure payout to the doctor before a group of plotters inside and outside the club turned their guns on the president – igniting a three-year legal battle that continues to rip the club apart today.

Green is admired by Dees supporters, but has been on the club’s board since November 2020.

Shand, too, is already familiar with the club having spent time with senior Demons figures in the past 12 months.

So who appointed the review panel and what are its terms of reference?

And why should Pert, the man who recently got it so incredibly and wildly wrong when he declared that Melbourne boasted “the best culture I’ve seen in 40 years” – despite a litany of off-field incidents – be anywhere near the review?

It was footy’s version of Bob Hawke’s “no Australian child will be living in poverty”.

The saga continued on Monday evening with the news that the man identified as Roffey’s long-term replacement, former Melbourne Cricket Club president Steven Smith, had declined an offer to join the board.

The culture can at Melbourne has been kicked down the road for years and only a genuinely independent, warts-and-all review – one that may well find the CEO has been a part of the problem – can get to the bottom of the mess at the Demons.

[SquirrelGrip]

[B][U][URL="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/michael-warner-why-gary-pert-cant-spin-his-way-out-of-melbourne-demons-shshow-despite-reviews/news-story/4a9ba9747d5eb16b9d9e2ad333597e6c"]
The culture can at Melbourne has been kicked down the road for years and only a genuinely independent, warts-and-all review – one that may well find the CEO has been a part of the problem – can get to the bottom of the mess at the Demons.

Given Pert is one of the three conducting the review, it would be a surprise that it's going to find the truth, that indeed is part of the problem.

[Axe Man]

Gary Pert has quit as Melbourne CEO despite the best culture he's seen in 40 years.

[bulldogtragic]

Gary Pert has quit as Melbourne CEO despite the best culture he's seen in 40 years.

Going out on top. Boss move.

[1eyedog]

Given Pert is one of the three conducting the review, it would be a surprise that it's going to find the truth, that indeed is part of the problem.

Shhhhh

[jeemak]

Imagine falling victim to your own review.

It's like that time John Roskam had to step down from leading the IPA after losing a war that existed entirely between his own ears.

[GVGjr]

Joel Smith is apparently receiving a ban for 4 years.
Pert clearly was aware of this. Amazing culture sits nicely on his CV

Melbourne’s Joel Smith slapped with career-ending ban for cocaine use and trafficking

Melbourne footballer Joel Smith has been slapped with a career-ending four-year ban for cocaine use and trafficking.

Smith, 28, tested positive to cocaine following a match at the MCG in August 2023.

He was later hit with additional drug trafficking charges by Sport Integrity Australia investigators.

The huge ban is expected to be announced by the AFL and SIA on Friday.

At least four of Smith’s Melbourne teammates have been sweating on the outcome of the trafficking probe.

A text message from Smith uncovered by SIA – in which he told them he had obtained several grams of cocaine and asked if they were interested – is understood to have been sent to a group of star Demons players.

The Smith camp was initially hoping for a suspension of just three months before the trafficking allegations surfaced.

Smith had the option to contest his case at the AFL anti-doping tribunal but his father, former Melbourne high-flyer Shaun Smith, believed he was being pressured to stay silent and take the fall in a bid to contain a bigger scandal.

“It feels like my son is being manipulated into being the fall guy here, in order to protect the AFL brand,” Smith said in April.

“He’s being made a scapegoat, and I’m really worried for him.”

Figures close to Smith insist that he never used cocaine before signing on at Melbourne as a rookie in 2016.

Any attempt to supply a prohibited substance, even in small quantities, can be considered trafficking under national anti-doping regulations.

In a statement handed to federal MP Andrew Wilkie earlier this year – assessed by SIA – former Demons doctor Zeeshan Arain estimated two thirds of the club’s squad were either “frequent” drug users or “occasionally” used illicit drugs.

Mr Wilkie also exposed a secret “off the books” illicit drug testing regime operating within the AFL, which helps players evade detection for breaches of the world anti-doping code.

Demons chief executive Gary Pert, who announced his resignation on Thursday, claimed last year that Melbourne’s culture was “the best I’ve seen in 40 years”.

But a series of off-field scandals have plagued the Demons since the 2021 premiership, including a bitter legal war with former president Glen Bartlett surrounding allegations over the club’s culture.

Star midfielder Clayton Oliver was shopped around by the club before this year’s trade period, while Norm Smith medallist Christian Petracca was also linked to a trade amid concerns over the treatment of a serious injury he suffered during a game at the MCG.

Former Dees president Kate Roffey, who replaced Bartlett, stood down seven weeks ago.

Melbourne is expected to unveil the findings of two separate reviews into the club’s operations on Friday.

[bulldogtragic]

If he turns State’s Witness on what he and his team mates were doing in September 2021 I will help fund his appeal.

[Axe Man]

Michael Warner: Amid the chaos and belligerence at Melbourne, Gary Pert finally ran out of chances

Gary Pert insists he?s departing Melbourne on his own terms, not the club?s.

Former president Kate Roffey said the same when she hit the exits seven weeks ago.

But Demons fans ? and the football public ? aren?t stupid.

In truth, Melbourne is cleansing itself of the chief protagonists from a boardroom debacle that ripped the club apart.

It was Pert back in October 2020 who made the fateful call to remove long-serving Demons doctor Zeeshan Arain, just days after the respected medico had sounded the alarm about the culture within the club.

The Arain sacking triggered a series of events that would haunt the club, despite the glory of a now distant 2021 premiership.

Arrogance and belligerence by Pert and members of Roffey?s board after the sudden removal of president Glen Bartlett, who was pushing to get to the bottom of the culture allegations, enabled the dispute to infect all quarters of the club for a full three seasons, derailing any prospect of sustained success.

Pert was front and centre in the chaos and machinations, and like Roffey, finally ran out of chances.

His well-timed resignation comes ahead of the handing down of two reviews into the club?s flailing operations and further renewal of the board.

Interim president Brad Green and fellow director Geoff Porz (who wasn?t around when the Bartlett dispute began) have emerged in recent weeks as the adults in the room at Melbourne.

Former vice-president Geoff Freeman, who like many influential Demons supporters had become exasperated at the off-field turmoil, was prepared to make a run for the presidency until meeting with Green and Porz in South Yarra earlier this month.

Freeman was assured that change was coming and that the deeply damaging ? and costly ? legal stoush with Bartlett was set to be resolved.

The AFL is not without blame for the unnecessary and avoidable crisis that has engulfed Melbourne.

Fully briefed in those early months of 2021, league commission chairman Richard Goyder and then AFL boss Gillon McLachlan sat back and said nothing as the knife was plunged into Bartlett?s back.

The departures of Pert and Roffey ? and several other board members ? gives the Demons a chance to enter season 2025 with clean air. But it will count for nothing if Bartlett?s litigation is not quickly put to bed.

Another year of court cases and mud slinging won?t work.

When it ends, spare a thought for Dr Arain who first blew the whistle on the goings on at Melbourne and later exposed the secret ?off the books? illicit drugs testing regime that has long operated within the game.

?A lot of people owe Dr Arain an apology,? federal MP Andrew Wilkie said on Thursday.

?At significant risk to himself, Dr Arain spoke out about strong concerns he had for the culture at the Melbourne Football Club that others are finally and belatedly acknowledging.

?If some inside the AFL had the same level of integrity as him, we would have a safer game.?

Dr Arain was ostracised by league chiefs and house-trained club medicos, who have turned a blind eye to poor behaviour and rampant illicit drug use.

Yet the doctor?s concerns have been borne out publicly and spectacularly. He has been vindicated.

Common sense is prevailing at Melbourne and the ringleaders of the circus are all heading out the door.

[ledge]

I read somewhere Jones is back at the club .
This bloke seemed to be the one who did the hard years and well and truely bled for the club.
They turfed him when they turned the corner.
If there is a positive at the club it’s him coming back.

[comrade]

Pert and Roffey going is good for the Demons, this is bad news.