Cats chief opens up on AFL punishment, sets record straight over ‘cover up’ claims

Geelong CEO Steve Hocking has addressed the AFL’s findings from the audit regarding the Club’s TPP and Soft Cap, saying there’s a feeling of “letting down” the supporter base.

Geelong was hit with a $77,500 fine for a series of administrative errors centred on the non-disclosure of third-party payments, but $40,000 will be suspended pending any further breaches, with the Cats set to face “additional compliance requirements” over the next two-year period.

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“There’s a feeling of letting down. You don’t want to get caught up in these items. The thing I would start with is it has been extensive and as far as vindication goes, I’m certainly not sitting here going ‘you beauty’ and punching the air. I don’t think that’s the response to it from my end certainly and the club more broadly,” he told SEN.

“It’s been six months worth of work. If I said to either one of you to hand over your laptop and phone… they were taken for four hours.

“I think it is really important to understand it was that extensive. There will be a range of people out there that think there’s a cover up, I’ve had a relationship with the AFL, I’ve worked there, Geelong may have been receiving some favours, it’s not the case.

“It’s one of the more trying things I’ve been involved in.

“The reason why those devices were taken was to make sure they could do all of the research in those areas. They basically chase down and try to reveal potentially any movement of players, any discussions that maybe related to sponsors, player managers and so forth.

“There’s always been the question around Geelong, how do you continue to get some of the very best players? The reality is, we’ve always stood up and said the community of Geelong helps. Post COVID really has helped us enormously.

“I go back to Brad Ottens, there was a period of time through the early 2000s, we had a player from a club in Melbourne who was negotiating to come down the road and part of the contract was to have a car and a driver. That’ s how hard it was to get players down the road.

“Now players want to come down there because it’s a place of choice and the program we run. The important thing is to make sure it’s done appropriately and above board and that’s what we’ve worked through with the AFL.”

So, what exactly were the infringements?

“I can’t go into all of them because we’d be getting very personal around our people and we’ve tried not to do that… an example will be an associate, so a sponsor of the club, an individual within that sponsorship group business has access to a holiday house or a farm and a player or a staff member go and stay there for one, two, three nights. That’s seen as a breach of the soft cap policy,” Hocking continued.

“The reason for that is there’s a value attached to that. All that staff member or player has to do is declare that at the end of the year, every club goes through a mini audit at the end of the year… there’s a sheet that comes and you just need to declare where and what you’ve been at different times. There’s a bit of grey in that and has been in the system for quite some time.

“If you have a look at the fine print at the bottom of the AFL’s statement, they’re going to tighten all that area up and we welcome that.

“It’s on us to educate our people far greater in this area so that they know what they can and can’t do.

“We’ve got to be mindful of not trying to minimize what’s gone on here. The reality is we’ve copped a fine, some people will look at it and say it’s light, but if people understood how much time and effort has gone into this,

“It’s been conducted right across the whole year, we’ve been very open and compliant with the AFL and the AFL have done a fabulous job, it’s remained confidential right throughout.

“I’m not going to sit here and try and justify what we have or haven’t done, we’ve done it.

Hocking said the Cats had worked closely with the AFL once they realised there were some “red flags”.

“At the end of each year you basically join forces with the AFL… there were some red flags for us,” he said.

“I think other clubs were starting to question how we get access to these players, they don’t understand how frugal we are when it comes to managing our list and our TPP.

“We identified this and said, ‘hey, I think we need to hand ourselves over and open right up here’. Wherever it goes it goes, we just need to stand up here and take responsibility.”

Eyebrows have been raised amongst the footy industry about Bailey Smith and his alignment with Cotton On, while Ford is another major sponsor of the Cats. How does that work within the salary cap system?“The Bailey one’s a great example. If you see him on a billboard and he is just solely promoting Cotton On fashion, that’s independent but it has to be approved by the AFL, not by the football club… That’s between Bailey, his manager and the AFL,” Hocking began.

“As soon as Bailey’s seen on a billboard with a Geelong logo or any link to Geelong in clothing or so forth, that’s a breach.”

Smith’s off-field missteps have added up this year. From Mad Monday dress ups and social media captions, to abusing a photographer at training, the Cats are set to sit down with him over the off-season.

“Mad Monday is absolutely on all of us. There is a range of people that were part of that. There’s certain individuals that dressed up inappropriately. We have apologised for that, particularly to Caro (Caroline Wilson), it was unacceptable how that was rolled out and treated,” Hocking continued.

“In regards to Bailey, we have absolutely welcomed what he has done on field. He finished third in the Brownlow. It’s an amazing comeback off the back of an ACL.

“When you come off-field, the interest in him is just unbelievable. He has a different relationship with social media than our age profile. I don’t understand it at all, but he works that exceptionally well.

“There will be a time in my view this will involve all of us in the off-season where by we need to (talk to him).

“It’s not about tiptoeing around someone like Bailey but more about tailoring it accordingly.

“I always talk about barnacles on a boat, if you end up with too many it’s only going one way, we have to remove some of those.”

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