Mr X Campbell & the Essendon Board

Dear Mr Campbell

I write in my capacity as an Essendon member (account number 2962854).

I was surprised to read your comment in the Herald Sun today that you are “confident” James Hird will survive the season as coach. Hird is our club’s greatest asset and your comment, inadvertently, undermines Hird. There should be no doubt. The public must be told Hird is the coach and will coach for at least the next two years.

Irrespective of whether the players are cleared or whether 34 are ‘convicted’, Hird’s position is impregnable for the following reasons and your comments should reflect that:

1. The Victorian Occupational, Health & Safety Act states that the employers are most responsible for the health and safety of their employees. In this instance, the AFL commissioners and the Essendon board are the employers.   
   
   
2. Hird was on a different branch of the organisation structure from the football department. That decision and Hird’s job description meant that he had no legal responsibility for providing a safe workplace, and had no right to interfere with Paul Hamilton, Dean Robinson or Dr Reid’s jobs. Although that was an idiotic decision, the club should be pleased because it insulates your most prized asset.
   
   
3. The players love Hird and they insist he coaches them.
   
   
4. Despite the board seemingly being happy for Hird to be the fall-guy for its failures, the majority of the members want Hird to coach the team. I opine that if the board had defended Hird and made everyone aware of his position in the organisation structure, and therefore his legal lack of responsibility, the overwhelming majority of members would want him as coach.

It has been obvious that the board has never had a plan or strategy. It has waited for something to happen and then reacted, conditioned by the wrong belief that it was answerable to the AFL and not to the people who put them on the board – the Essendon members. I don’t know a lot about Australian football but I suspect that if you only play in your half and play everyman behind the ball you won’t kick a behind, let alone a goal.

In case you haven’t noticed, this saga has been played by the AFL, the media, the 17 clubs and the supporters of the 17 clubs inside Essendon’s defensive 50-yard zone. The best Essendon has done is punch a couple of balls over the boundary-line.

In my view, the board has a responsibility to mitigate any threats. If the tribunal decides to give Bold Personality a run, and the players are suspended, this is what will happen:

1. The media will mount an unprecedented campaign to sack Hird.
   
   
2. McLachlan will say this has nothing to do with the AFL but he will ring Mr Little and say “Paul, the delay in sacking Hird is causing enormous damage to the brand and we even had sponsors ringing us expressing their concern. For heaven’s sake, and the game’s sake, and Essendon’s sake, get rid of him.”
   
   
3. Peter Gordon will mount the pulpit again. Sarah will ring Eddie and tell him that her son still needs to be tucked in at night, and that she and her husband can no longer afford to pay the electricity bill because they have to leave the light on in her son’s bedroom.  

Given that the Victorian WorkSafe Authority should find against the AFL (courtesy of an Essendon member and myself), and Essendon FC (courtesy of former WADA chief executive John Fahey), I think you should consider releasing a media statement along the following lines:

1. The Essendon board and our lawyers are extremely confident that our players will be cleared by the AFL tribunal for two reasons. One, we don’t believe the players were administered Thymosin Beta-4. Two, at the hearing, ASADA made no attempt to prove any player from 1 to 34 was administered Thymosin Beta-4. If you don’t try and prove player 1 was administered Thymosin Beta-4, you can’t find him ‘guilty’. The same applies to players 2 to 34. Including this point is crucial for a number of reasons:
   
   i. It conditions the public to expect the players to be cleared, which will temper the media’s outrage when they are cleared.
   
   ii. This point needs to be reinforced to the tribunal members who the AFL is trying to influence by its public comments.
   
   iii. Most importantly, if the players are cleared, it will enable Essendon, Alan Jones and me and the minister for sport, to apply pressure to ASADA not to appeal. ASADA appealing the players being cleared has the same effect on the year as the players being found guilty. If you make a noise now that ASADA didn’t even try and prove players 1 to 34 were administered Thymosin Beta-4, it will make it extremely difficult, for ASADA to appeal the players being cleared.
   
   
2. Irrespective of the tribunal decision, James Hird will remain coach because he has a two-year contract and because legally, he was not responsible for providing a safe workplace for the players;
   
   
3. The Victorian OH&S Act states that as joint employers, the buck stops with the Essendon board and the AFL commission. We accept our responsibility and are sure the commission also accepts its responsibility;
   
   
4. If Hird were sacked because our players were suspended, those with more responsibility than Hird, viz, The AFL commissioners; Gillon McLachlan; Brett Clothier; and, the Essendon board, would also have to be sacked.

The above proactive response would:

1. Negate weeks of negative press through the media beating up Hird.
   
   
2. Improve your chances of having the $2 million fine over-turned. You have a fiduciary duty to save every penny you can for the members.
   
   
3. Cleanse the board from guilt for not owning up that it was their failures as directors to do their jobs, and not Hird’s failure, that have caused the problems. I am still gobsmacked that the board’s consciences allowed Hird to take the fall for them. 
   
   
4. Present a united club, that is, the board, the players and the members are in sync and support the coach. 

Mr Campbell, I really don’t understand how the board is prepared to hide and allow the club to be whacked, day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month, year-after-year. The AFL hasn’t had to justify its actions, or inactions. It’s time you took the gloves off; it’s time you acted in the best interests of the members and not in the best interests of the AFL; its time you got stuck into the AFL.

Bruce Francis

My Comment: I understand that none of my letters were passed to the board.