Aussie Rules player agents will continue to be allowed to bet on matches until at least July. The Australian Football League (AFL) rules are expected to apply to player managers from when they meet for their annual two-day conference in July. Over a year ago, the AFL moved to have agents put onto its integrity database – one that monitors telephone records of AFL players, officials and their families. The problem comes with the fact the AFL Players Association wants to decide the punishments for any agent found guilty. This isn’t something the Agents Accreditation Board chairman, Ian Prendergast, is at all worried about though.
”We believe the AFLPA is the appropriate body to regulate agents,” he told WA Today. ”The AFL wanted to jointly regulate but we’ll just work our way through the issues and I’m hopeful we’ll have a result by July.”
Prendergast did say that while he was happy for the AFL to dish out punishments “as it’s an area where they have all the required information,” the union wants “the final say on any penalty.”
AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou added: “We’ve spoken to the players’ association and it just makes sense in terms of issues such as gambling and respect and responsibility.”
The AFL itself has urged fans to report any players of officials betting on league games. Integrity officer Brett Clothier was the first to float the idea of putting agents on the database and his next target will be accredited media and AFLPA executives and staff. Who knows which group he’ll be targeting after that. They can’t ban the spectators…can they?!
