'Idiot soup': Eddie McGuire lifts lid on AFL strip club scandal
Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has described the immediate fallout from Richmond duo Sydney Stack and Callum Coleman-Jones’ ill-advised visit to a Gold Coast strip club last week.
Stack, 20, and Callum Coleman-Jones, 21, were ousted from the Tigers' Queensland hub after visiting a strip club and being involved in a drunken fight early on Friday morning.
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They were both suspended for 10 matches by the AFL and the Tigers fined $100,000 for a second breach by members of their club travel bubble.
Both players have made public apologies, but McGuire said the sheer idiocy of the pair’s actions had left AFL brass at the Queensland hub flabbergasted.
“(AFL CEO) Gillon McLachlan is basically in the room upstairs from me here - we just couldn’t believe what happened,” McGuire told Channel Nine’s Sport Sunday.
“In here at the moment at the hub, Gil and even myself and club officials sat around and we actually spoke to all the people that were up here, the journalists, the wives, the girlfriends, the kids and everybody.
“We said right, here’s what we need to do. We actually brought out a pole that was one-point-five metres and put it by the pool to make sure everybody has an understanding.
“Everyone’s on tenterhooks about getting this right.”
Eddie McGuire satisfied with Richmond Tigers sanctions
The Magpies president is no stranger to dealing with poor behaviour from players, having had to fend off accusations of hypocrisy following Collingwood veteran Steele Sidebottom’s COVID-19 breaches earlier in the season.
McGuire said he was satisfied Stack and Coleman-Jones’ punishment fit the crime.
“Clearly they had a drink to celebrate after a game, it was a teammates birthday, that was sanctioned,” he said.
“Then they went back to the room, the idiot soup kicked in on them and they decided it was a good idea to break every rule they’ve been told for the last three months and as a result they got a full whack.
“Everyone knows the rules, I’ve been pretty strong on this, you’ve got to go hard.
“I would’ve gone hard earlier including some of my people at Collingwood who got into trouble, but it is what it is.”
Fellow media commentator Tony Jones had argued for even harsher penalties.
The veteran reporter said both players deserved to be sacked.
“If it was me, it’d be instant dismissal. If you work for a bank and you were sent up there, you would be dismissed,” Jones told the Sunday Footy Show.
“What gets me is people have lost their jobs in the AFL and at Richmond.
“These two blokes along with their teammates are in a privileged position whereby they can go and kick a football and get paid well for it. They still can’t abide by the rules which have been set out.
“There should be no second chances, they should be sacked.”
With AAP
