Sydney Swans hire external advisers to review club culture after off-season incidents
The Sydney Swans have engaged external advisers to conduct a review of the club’s culture after a Melbourne hotel incident in August and Tom Papley’s alleged positive roadside drug test this week, the club said on Thursday. The moves follow the suspension of five players earlier in the off-season and fresh internal and police inquiries.
Swans CEO Matthew Pavlich said the club was “bitterly disappointed” to be facing another off-season scandal after Papley, described by the club as one of the team’s most experienced players, allegedly returned a positive result for methylamphetamine when pulled over by police on Monday morning. Papley is not expected to be sanctioned by the club until the results of a secondary saliva sample are revealed in at least four weeks, and he was issued with a court attendance notice for driving with a suspended licence due to non-payment of a parking fine. “We’re bitterly disappointed that we’re here talking about this today,” Pavlich said. “We’re really disappointed in Tom himself. We voiced that pretty directly to him yesterday. We apologise unreservedly to our members, fans and corporate partners. “We’ve let them down again. We must be better. It’s a really disappointing time for the footy club, but given this is a police matter, we cannot make any further comment.”
Later on Thursday the Swans sent a letter to club members from Pavlich and club chair Andrew Pridham apologising “for the distress recent incidents involving players from the club have caused”. “Our priority is care, respect and support for those affected,” the letter added, and set out steps the club has taken since the Melbourne hotel incident.
Following the Melbourne incident five players — Isaac Heeney, Nick Blakey, Chad Warner, Riley Bice and James Jordon — were suspended for breaching the club’s standards, which the Swans said included drinking and bringing women back to their hotel. The club’s letter said the actions and attitudes of some within the club “has damaged and diminished the many great things we do, and the great people who do them,” and added, “This is unacceptable and must change.”
Police are treating Riley Bice as a potential witness in a separate investigation into an alleged sexual assault at the Pullman hotel, while Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey and James Jordon remain part of that investigation, which the club said is ongoing. The club noted that no one has been arrested or charged and that the players have reportedly denied any criminal wrongdoing.
The Swans board commissioned a “comprehensive examination” of the club’s AFL program in early September, the club said, and that review is expected to be completed by the end of the year. As part of the process the club has engaged workplace culture company Intersection, led by Natasha de Silva, to conduct an independent review and to advise on club protocols and programs and “achieve meaningful change wherever necessary”.
Papley’s case will wait on the secondary saliva test results in at least four weeks, and the board’s comprehensive examination and the independent Intersection review are scheduled to conclude by the end of the year.