Sack Pendles (and De Goey!)

[K]

[think positive]

Well stupid $£$%^%%$ degoey needs that in his contract now $£$%^%%$ $£$%^%%$ $£$%^%%$ bloody idiot

[K]

^ How about it, David? Do you approve?

[David]

[K]

^^^
Well, you seem to have given us an easy one on the JDG issue. How can that level of drunkenness not affect his training? And, if you go by Nickster training reports, he was already offside with teammates, so things he's doing are affecting the performance of the team. I imagine a lot of them would be just as annoyed as Nicksters at this moment.

[David]

If he was hitting 0.09 on Monday morning, then yeah, probably. Otherwise, sounds like a pretty standard Friday night, doesn’t it? The real problem was getting behind the wheel of a car, not having a couple of drinks in the pre-season, one would think.

Anyway, I know I’m shouting into the void here. There is a whole rubbish heap of precedents lying behind us by now, and I have no doubt that the club will give him a draconian (perhaps near-career-ending) penalty and that most people will think it’s appropriate. The change I want to see is a fundamental one and would require people (and football clubs) to massively change the way they think about these things.

[Wokko]

Probably got shit faced, thought he'd recovered but was still over. We've all done it before; he just got caught. Will lose his license, have to get lifts to training and catch taxis everywhere. Put him on a first and final warning for the year and have done with it. If he screws up again then put him up for trade; like the Stevie J ultimatum from the cats.

[stui magpie]

[K]

[Mugwump]

I agree with you, David. What someone does out of hours really should not be a matter for their employers unless it impairs their ability to do their job or materially affects the reputation of their employer. One transgression of this nature has no real impact on Collingwood’s reputation, and it’s a matter for JDG and the law. If drinking is making him underperform vs his contract, then that’s to be judged from his performance on the field, not in the yellow press. He seems to be a bit of a dick, but that’s a matter for the Club to reflect in his contract.

[K]

Clearly, he did not maim or kill himself drink-driving, but he could have, and that would clearly have impaired his ability to do his job.

Clubs sponsors hate this sort of thing. Posters who work within the club say so. And some clubs &/or the AFL (not sure which) have sponsorship deals with the TAC. I mean the kids' comp is called the TAC Cup. This sort of thing really is tangibly threatening the club and league.

[HAL]

I heard he did. Is it that obvious?

[Mugwump]

[K]

Well, let's not say maim, but break something. That would be inconvenient but not crippling to most workplace jobs. But not so for a sporting job.

I note that some employers do run background checks and drug tests on normal employees. Does drink-driving get you sacked or suspended from, say, the police force?

I think my bigger reason for not really being persuaded by your and David's objections is that I see it as just part of the business agreement. If an employer offered me more money (on top of an already very healthy base) and in return imposed the sorts of restrictions placed on these kids, I'd accept without hesitation. The AFLPA negotiated all of this stuff with the AFL.

[think positive]