Eddie McGuire Reacts To The Jaidyn Stephenson Suspension

Eddie McGuire has reacted to Jaidyn Stephenson’s ten match ban for betting on Collingwood games on the Hot Breakfast this morning.

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“There is the humiliation for a young guy who is a smart young fella generally and he’s made a very bad mistake and he has been punished severely for it, and should be, and has been, done,” Ed said.

“He also is at a football club that has made a policy of getting out of gambling, the only club to have voluntarily gotten out of poker machines — North are out of poker machines as well — and do not accept any gambling monies… that flies right in the face of everything we stand for.”

Ed said Stephenson was lucky that Stephenson’s betting hadn’t had more of an implication for the integrity of the game.

“If you then bet on your own team, that becomes a really, really dangerous situation, because that heads towards not just having a bet but is there even subliminal match fixing or manipulation of the game and all that sort of stuff,” Ed said.

“That strikes at the very integrity of the game.

“I have no doubt that if Jaidyn Stephenson or any player actually had something in his multi that might have led to, let’s just say that the opposition team winning was in there, he would have got life.

“So we’re starting with life and working our way back on these things.”

Ed gave some insight into how the sanction came to be a ten match ban.

“We believe that there is no way that the AFL would have found out that his mate had put on a multi unless he came forward,” Ed said.

The circumstances were that he was sitting on his couch with his mate who was having a multi, and as we know you can not in this world these days not hear the word multi rammed down your throat 3,000 times a night anywhere you go if you’re watching any sport whatsoever… bottom line on all that is, you go forward, but that the integrity of the game is the paramount concern of everybody.

“He gets 10 weeks, I thought personally eight weeks would be a pretty heavy sanction… people might say that’s a number that’s been picked (the 22 week suspension of which 12 is suspended).

“I can tell you Darce, it started way beyond that number and came backwards and we landed at ten.

“Everyone including Jaidyn Stephenson accepts that for the game itself as and as a legitimate punishment 10 weeks is fair enough… he went from life to four weeks to everything in between.

“As you put it up on the board and put a star or put a cross and a tick next to all the elements and it came out as… ten weeks and $20,000, and he’s on match payments so he doesn’t play, he doesn’t get paid.”

Stephenson suspension starts immediately and ends after round 23, meaning he will be eligible to play in the first week of finals for Collingwood.

The 20-year-old is the reigning Rising Star and has kicked 59 goals in his 38 games for the club.

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