Strange things are happening at AFL headquarters. Things that would be terrifying if their results weren’t so predictable. In a blatant snub to the Christian Right, Demetriou (one) has embarked upon advanced cloning/mind-meld technology, ensuring that all his underlings speak the same incomprehensible corporate mush, with the same gimlet-eyed conviction that he uses to strike fear into the hearts of football fans around the country.

Anyone can dribble out “going forward”, “stakeholders”, “process” etc etc, and any team of reasonably well-trained chimps can sit on a board and spout the party line when required. But Demetriou (two) has taken the indoctrination process to a new level, where his minions (in imitation of their Glorious Leader) could speak the above nonsense under wet cement with a mouth full of marbles while the actual truth was being ground up into a fine paste and injected directly into their frontal lobes.

Witness the shenanigans surrounding Nick Maxwell’s three weeks, no four weeks, no scratch that, nothing, for “rough conduct”. Without going into all the technicalities and details of the incident, and roaring the standard lament of fans for the last two decades of “It’s a fucking contact sport, they’re MEANT to crash into each other!!”, I ask you to consider the following:

There’s a QC on the Tribunal that found him guilty, and another three on the appeals board. Additionally, Collingwood engaged a QC to represent him. That makes FIVE of the best legal minds in Victoria who can’t come to an agreement over what constitutes rough conduct, and if a legal action can suddenly become illegal because of an unfortunate result. It’s not drink drive legislation, or a four-thousand page contract for the building of a new power station, it’s SPORT, for fuck’s sake! It should be pretty simple!

If Maxwell had elbowed McGinnity in the face, then that’s an illegal act, and the severity of the injury caused should be considered in sentencing. The first duty of the match review committee is to determine if an action was illegal. Then, and only then, should they consider the consequences of that action. However, the rule under which Maxwell was charged is opaque at best, and downright misleading at worst. Is the act itself illegal, or does it only become illegal when its consequences are later discovered?

Collingwood’s QC quite rightly pointed out that the rule is riddled with inconsistencies and double negatives, and there are sections where it is abundantly unclear as to whether “the player” referred to is the bumper or the bumpee. He suggested that the rule is unwieldy, unclear, and needs to be re-written, and everyone who doesn’t work for Demetriou (three) agrees.

So, what does operations manager Adrian Anderson say, in the face of negative comments from actual lawyers about this ridiculously-worded and badly framed law, never mind the bare facts that one week it was serious enough to warrant four weeks’ suspension, then the next week it turned out not to have been an offence at all? “The thrust of the rule is clear”. Western Sydney is the obvious place for a new team, the surface at Sponsor Dome is the best in the world, as is the ticketing system, there’s no conflict of interest in who owns it and runs it, and refreshments are entirely affordable.

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So, predictions for the season.

Hawthorn will not perform to their best in the first five rounds, as Lance Franklin moons about in a haze of existential angst, brought on by his near-death experience just past my driveway the other day. Hector the Cat will be employed to teach him the basics of look to the right, look to the left, look to the right again, then when the road is CLEAR OF MY FUCKING ONCOMING CAR, walk straight across the road, don’t run, and don’t pull fucking faces at me, you twat. Hawthorn will probably win the flag again.

Geelong will be booted out of the AFL when it is discovered they are actually androids sent from the future to rescue their downed mother-ship, but who all got distracted by the techno-topia that is their home town. Jimmy Bartel will go off like the Yul Brynner robot in Westworld and shoot everybody, but unfortunately he won’t be in AFL headquarters when he does it.

North Melbourne will motivate themselves by watching bootlegged videos of Glenn Archer eating barbed wire while wrestling Kodiak bears. This will work for the first half of the season, until Demetriou (four) announces that they’re moving to the Gold Coast after all, but they have to build their own stadium and they get no draft picks for six years and where’s that fifty bucks he lent them?

Fremantle will force all its players to sign new contracts with behaviour clauses added in. Most will agree to the “act like a tool all the time” requirement, but some will demur, and be replaced with Warren Tredrea. The sight of twelve out of eighteen players being Tredrea will send Dennis Commetti into apoplexy, and Western Australia will secede from the Commonwealth.

West Coast will be boring, until it is revealed that the whole club was a ghost-based real estate scam and they would’ve got away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids.

St Kilda and Richmond will start their own Perennially Disappointed League – Richmond’s reasons are simple: being in a two-team comp will pretty much guarantee they can’t finish ninth. St Kilda’s, however, remain a little more opaque. They will begin by citing contract difficulties with local council over their new home ground, but it will rapidly become evident that the main reason is to get Nick Riewoldt away from Grant Thomas.

Collingwood will apply more business sense than the above-mentioned, and simply buy the AFL outright, renaming it the Emirates-Lexus-McGuire-Boning-Pit-Collingwood Football League. They will fix the jumper clash issue once and for all by insisting that ALL other teams wear pink, leaving the black and white only for those who’ve earned the right to wear the sacred stripes, being Collingwood, and the umpires.

Melbourne will spend the season in an iron lung.

Port Adelaide’s coach will retire from football altogether, citing the usual “spend more time with my family”, which in this case doesn’t mean “I got caught shagging my PA on the boardroom table”, it actually does mean he wants to spend more time with his family. They bought a bus, they painted flowers on it, they’re putting on a show, c’mon get happy!!

Adelaide will take advantage of Port’s absence from their pissant town (credit to Aurelio Vidmar) to start up their own theatre group, performing an all-male interpretation of Steaming, with music by Rammstein, as well as an off-off-off-Broadway mime version of Waiting For Modra.

Carlton will perform well above expectations early in the season, thanks largely to the fact that Fevola finally found his way into the gym. This will dissipate after round Seven, when the Blues play traditional rivals Fremantle on the Gold Coast. Brendan decides to get in a bit of practice for Schoolies’ week and finds himself with shaved eyebrows and a shiny new wife.

Sydney will at last do the right thing by Demetriou (five) and axe Paul Roos, finally admitting what Demetriou’s (six) been telling them all this time, that their play is boring, their coach is a bastard, and they just haven’t been doing enough to promote the game in Western Sydney.

The game itself will continue to be the best game in the world, the umpires will be given a new interpretation of at least one rule each week and continue to get it wrong, and we the fans will love them for it. Demetriou (seven) will take all the credit.

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