It's amazing the number of people getting all bent out of shape over the EJ Whitten game result, labelling it rigged, etc. It was a fucking charity match FFS ](*,)

Worth noting that come the completion of round 17, Collingwood will have traveled interstate just once.

They might travel 3 times in the last 7, but two of those are to last and second last. And while clubs like North Melbourne face two trips to Perth. The fact that when there are 7 interstate teams, Collingwood travel just 4 times in 24 rounds is a joke.

Heath Shaw suspended for eight weeks for betting on Collingwood game

Mark Robinson From: Herald Sun July 15, 2011

UPDATE 5.10pm: HEATH Shaw has apologised to his club and its supporters after copping an eight-week ban for betting on a Collingwood game.

Shaw was handed a 14-week ban, with six weeks suspended, along with a fine of $20,000 for breaches of AFL's gambling regulations.

The breach relates to Shaw betting $10 (in a shared $20 bet with a friend) on his captain Nick Maxwell kicking the first goal in the Round 9 match against Adelaide.

"I gave (my friend) 10 dollars and he placed the bet on Maxie to score first goal," Shaw told a press conference this afternoon.

"I understand my actions got me in the situation I'm in now."

Maxwell, known as a defender, started the game in the forward line, but failed to kick a goal.

Shaw apologised today to the AFL, Collingwood and the team's supporters.

"I'm devastated that over the next eight weeks I won't be able to play football," he said.

Shaw said the club and teammates had pledged to "support me all the way".

Three bets were placed on Maxwell to score first goal by members of his family, with stakes totalling $85.

Tabcorp has confirmed that Shaw, his flatmate, and members of Maxwell's family were all recorded on CCTV placing cash bets at TAB venues.

“We have the ability to find the time the bets were placed then go back and review CCTV footage of the venues," a Tabcorp spokesman said.

“We did in this case and identified Heath Shaw with what was later discovered to have been his flatmate, who placed the bet, on the CCTV footage.

“Review of other CCTV footage showed Maxwell’s brother and his wife’s mother also placing bets.

“These were cash bets placed in TAB agencies.”

Maxwell's price for first goal plunged from 100-1 to 25-1.

He has been fined $10,000, $5000 of which has been suspended.

The Collingwood captain said he had no idea until yesterday that family members had used information about his starting position to bet.

"I take full responsibility for that," Maxwell said this afternoon.

"The rules state any information you give out is not to be used for betting purposes.

"I never said in black and white you can't use that information to gamble.

"It's not their fault because (I never told them not to)."

He said his family was "devastated".

"They had no idea," he said.

"I never in my wildest dreams thought they would use this information to gamble."

Maxwell said it was good the AFL was taking a tough stand "because it's not something we want the sport to be tainted by".

Pies president Eddie McGuire said the club was disappointed and had previously warned that gambling, not drugs, was the biggest risk to the competition.

He also praised the players for their honesty.

"Heath and Maxie know they shouldn't have had a bet, or informed their families," he said.

"We accept full responsibilty and we applaud the AFL.

"Everybody should know that this can't happen. The integrity of the game is everything."

AFL operations manager Adrian Anderson told a press conference this afternoon Maxwell had no knowledge or intent that information about his starting position would be used for betting purposes.

Anderson also said Shaw had been "open and honest" about the breaches when questioned.

Collingwood responded "quickly and appropriately" and "quickly recognised the seriousness of this matter", according to Anderson.

Anderson said he believed in the circumstances that the penalties were appropriate.

"We have very clear rules about the use of inside information in football," he said.

"If you breach the regulations, you will get caught.

"What we've found in international sport is that disclosure of inside information has been the gateway to nearly all forms of serious corruption.

"We never want that to happen in our game."

The league has introduced stringent rules in recent years prohibiting players, club and league officials from punting on matches.

The match was brought to the league's attention in May after a corporate bookmaker was approached to take bets on the Collingwood skipper kicking the first goal at Etihad Stadium, although there was no suggestion Shaw was involved at the time.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/heath-shaw-suspended-for-eight-weeks-for-betting-on-collingwood-game/story-e6frf9io-1226095377169

Did the guy kick the first goal though?

The Shaw gene pool has never been particularly deep.

It's hard to believe this team beat the pies.

...wut.

AFL hits the jackpot

Jake Niall
July 17, 2011

HEATH Shaw's suspension is a watershed moment in the AFL's increasingly complicated and contradictory relationship with gambling. As of Friday afternoon, all bets are off.

The AFL has been creeping towards this moment, gradually hardening its stance on footballers and officials who bet and becoming more versed in gathering intelligence on betting ''irregularities''.

Yet, the crackdown is happening at precisely the same time that football's commercial links to betting agencies are closer than ever, an inconvenient truth that might have pushed the AFL to take a harder line on Shaw.

Shaw has paid a substantial but appropriate price for his stupidity, but his penalty will not stretch beyond eight matches. Collingwood needs him. Barring injury, the Magpies will bring him back for the first week of the finals, even underdone, and despite his history of lying and drink-driving, you can forget about him being traded at season's end. The Pies will stand by their dimwit because he can really play and is well-liked. The only suitable trade for Collingwood would be to find a brain comparable to say, Luke Ball's, and donate it to Shaw.

A terrible episode for Collingwood is a free kick for the AFL, which has seized the moment, in much the same the way that it did when Carlton champion Greg Williams was suspended for shoving an umpire in 1997 - by finally handing out a tough penalty, the league has signalled a new regime. Stupid Shaw is more deserving of his penalty than Williams was, but the same logic underpins the decision: shoot one player to scare a thousand.

Players who have placed bets on football in the past, such as former Adelaide skipper Simon Goodwin and Melbourne's Daniel Ward, escaped suspension and were fined, as the AFL began to establish a new judicial model - along racing industry lines - for punishing betting on matches by those in the loop. The difference is that Shaw placed his $10 bet on his own team; only Port coach Matthew Primus has transgressed similarly (betting on Port via a multibet) when he was an assistant coach.

Shaw gift-wrapped the AFL a case that would finally make the powerful statement it needed to change the culture surrounding betting on the game. Hitherto, betting has had a level of casual acceptance by people around football. Back in the '80s, it was not unusual to hear - completely in the open, on AM radio - that a team had ''backed themselves to win this week'', putting their hard-earned on the result with the proceeds going towards the end-of-season trip. No one even considered for a second that there was anything sinister in these kind of bets, which were often illegal, too. In American sports, such betting by players was long frowned on, a legacy of baseball's betting scandals; in Australia, we have been much harder on drugs than gambling.

Shaw's suspension is a signal that the old betting culture - in which a few dollars on the game, even by a player, his mate or his sister's boyfriend - is forever gone, or, perhaps more accurately, that it is heading down the same path as racial vilification, primitive attitudes to women and king hits behind play. Henceforth, it's a no-no and any player who transgresses it is outing themselves as a moron, which was how the public viewed Justin Sherman's vilification of a young Suns player.

Shaw was an ideal candidate to further the new zero tolerance regime on a number of fronts. First, he's clearly someone whose ability to make good decisions on the field is matched by an inability to do the same when trouble beckons off the ground. There is a touch of Shane Warne - who gave information to dodgy subcontinental bookies and was let off lightly - about the affable Shaw. It is easier to punish him than a pristine player. Second, as colleague Greg Baum observed, Collingwood's size and stature amplifies the statement.

Finally, Shaw is a consistent punter. He might not have a gambling problem per se, but as a regular fixture at TABs (by his own admission), he fits the bill of a player who might be vulnerable to manipulation, along the lines of what has happened in cricket.

That said, football is less easily corrupted than cricket. ''Exotic'' betting, like exotic dancing, seems to be the most dangerous for the participant. There is a case for banning exotics altogether, since footy would be nigh impossible to corrupt if there were no ''first goals'' and ''highest stats'' bets available and the punter could bet only on the result.

If Shaw's suspension is a shot across the bow of players who bet on footy, Nick Maxwell's fine for telling family members he would be playing forward sets an interesting precedent and potential minefield for players. Can the AFL seriously prevent players from telling their girlfriends, wives and brothers that they're playing on Buddy Franklin, or at full-forward tomorrow?

If we take Maxwell at his word, then he has done nothing more than tell his family he was playing in an unusual position. They have landed him in strife by taking that information and laying (losing) bets.

The only party that has benefited from these dumb transactions, besides the TAB, is the AFL.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-hits-the-jackpot-20110716-1hj6j.html#ixzz1SMM3VQ7t

AFL players struggle with reading and maths, the AFLPA reveals

Jon Ralph and Mark Stevens From: Herald Sun July 20, 2011

A QUARTER of all players who come into the AFL system have reading and maths skills lower than year 10 level.

The AFL Players' Association yesterday revealed to the Herald Sun the alarming statistic, detailing how a lack of literacy and numeracy skills had cost some players their careers.

Player development general manager Steve Alessio said the players' association was working hard in conjunction with AFL clubs on intensive tutoring sessions to help players come up to speed.

Players are chosen by clubs for their physical skills, but many cannot grasp tactics and game plans.

The damning statistic comes as the players' union prepares to launch a university course to prepare club welfare managers for mentoring elite athletes.

Alessio told superfooty's Front and Square as many as 30 first-year players needed help with their basic skills every season.

"About three years ago we decided to start testing every player that came into the system," he said.

"There are about 120 players every year, and 25 per cent of those players roughly will have literacy and numeracy levels at less than a year 10 level.

"That causes us some concern. If a player has issues in that area, how is he going to understand complex tactics? How does he understand if the fitness guy comes to him and says, 'You have a hamstring injury, so do four 100m sprints at 50 per cent, then take a two-minute break and step it up to 75 per cent'.

"If you have numeracy issues that is going to be very difficult to understand."

The players' association believes literacy and numeracy problems are symptomatic of the broader community.

Alessio said once the difficulties were identified, clubs and the AFL worked on courses tailored for individual players.

Richmond draftee Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls was found to have profound learning difficulties only when he swapped to West Coast four years into his career.

Alessio has no doubt players have failed in football because of their lack of education.

"That's why we are so particular in terms of testing and finding out who the 25 per cent are," he said.

He said every player who needed support would get it.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/afl-players-struggle-with-reading-and-writing-the-aflpa-reveals/story-e6frea6u-1226098233932