Mumford and Murray

[K]

GWS confirm Mumford's $25,000 fine and suspension

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/gws-confirm-mumford-s-25-000-fine-and-suspension-20181105-p50e60.html

[E]

[MatthewBoydFanClub]

[sherrife]

[Mr Miyagi]

So the feel-good "Mumford's a good bloke!" support continues in the Herald-Sun today. He's managed by Ricky Nixon (for boxing). AFL propaganda machine is well oiled. They (AFL and journos) are quite happy to throw Collingwood players under the bus, and never follow up with "feel good" stories.

[OEP]

Sometimes I wonder why players / people keep making the same mistakes resulting in known punishments until I read posts like some of the ones in this thread.
As a society we seem to have become very adept at blaming or finding fault anywhere else but with the person(s) ultimately responsible for their own actions. We diminish the level of culpability they have for their actions or find reasons to lesson the severity of their actions.
If Murray took what he's accused of taking then he knew the risks and consequences for his actions and made the conscious decision to do it anyway. Saying the possible penality is harsh on him is incorrect, it's harsh on th club who've lost a player and wasted a pick, it's harsh on another player who may lose their spot on the list due to Murray keeping his until the matter is finalised, it's harsh on the Collingwood FC because they now have to put up with the stigma associated with this and the media feeding frenzy that will ensue IF his B sample comes back positive, it's harsh on his family and friends who have to watch him go through this process, and yes it's going to be very unpleasant for Murray but if he didn't want to experience this he shouldn't have (allegedly) taken the f@$&ing stuff.

[roar]

[David]

I know AFL players are on a high pay grade, but $25,000 is just a crazy amount of money. What, exactly, is he being punished for?

Someone like Slavoj Zizek or the ghost of Michel Foucault needs to do a philosophical study one day on the psychoanalytical underpinnings of AFL (league as well as club) moral ideologies and their often masochistic obsession with inflicting and receiving punishment. Enough material there to last a lifetime.

What a strangely moralistic and frightened world football is.

[K]

^ It's not about morality. It's all about the money (which includes keeping sponsors happy). (Exhibit A: CA.)

[E]

[K]

^ I assume they make sure they do all their sneezing before the expensive snorting.

[Monco Matt]

Didn't Mumford and Murray both come from the Sydney Swans / Sydney's academy? And let's not talk about Lance Franklin.....6 months off leading into a finals series because he's feeling a little bit sad? Give me a break. Sydney's drug culture is never brought under the microscope.

[Boogie Knights]

[David]

It's wrong though because it denies the possibility of excessive punishment. OEP's argument is that if you do something wrong (presuming we even consider a player's personal decision to take an illegal drug to be 'wrong' in the first place), you deserve whatever you get, and that the only victims are those who are secondarily affected by the punishment that Murray receives (i.e. we are punished because he was punished, and it's all his fault).

But obviously most of us understand that some forms of punishment are excessive and unjust. Most of us do not feel comfortable with the idea of people being imprisoned for adultery, executed for drink-driving or having their hand chopped off for stealing, for instance. In such cases, it is not good enough to say (as sheep-like authoritarians might) that anyone in such a situation knew the risk and therefore deserved whatever legal consequences were coming to them; we must also recognise that the penalty in such cases is too severe and that the person has been unfairly treated whether or not they were aware of the prevailing legal code. Anyone who cares about justice (as opposed to rigid, automaton-like enforcement of the law) can at least understand these principles.

Of course, you and OEP may not feel the penalty is too severe for cases such as these. Or perhaps you are of a more authoritarian bent and feel that there really is no limit to justifiable punishment, and that, if it's in the books, you deserve to cop whatever's coming to you. But I'm hopeful that the majority of people don't think like that, and can recognise when a punishment is draconian. To lose four years from your career (in an industry that only lasts ten to fifteen max) is a vastly excessive penalty for what is, essentially, a technicality. Murray, we can reasonably surmise, neither intended to seek an unfair performance enhancement and nor did he obtain any; and yet, he is likely receiving a punishment that is, as far as I can tell, on par with deliberately and successfully cheating. Those of us who sympathise with him are, I can assure you, perfectly lucid about that.

[OEP]