Chris Scott has had a double-barrelled crack at the AFL for fining players such as colourful Cats star Bailey Smith thousands of dollars for “stuff that just doesn’t matter”.
The outspoken Cats coach also criticised the league’s decision makers for dealing out “bewildering” financial sanctions for actions that they later used to promote the game.
Speaking at his weekly press conference, in the lead-up to Sunday’s match against Carlton at the MCG, Scott said the AFL had “far more serious things” in the game to address than players “flipping the bird”.
Bailey Smith of the Geelong Cats.Credit: AFL Photos
“I would query how consistent the AFL are with these things. On one hand, they seem to love it and promote things like Gather Round, and [the rivalry between] Port and Hawthorn,” he said.
“Then, on the other hand, they seem to feel like they need to fine people for stuff they are promoting. I’d pick a side if I were them.”
The AFL slapped Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley with a $20,000 penalty after last year’s qualifying final for sledging Hawks forward Jack Ginnivan. They then scheduled the two teams to meet again in Gather Round this year.
Geelong’s high-profile recruit Smith was fined a total of $3750 for two incidents during the Easter Monday win over Hawthorn – pushing a ball in opponent Jarman Impey’s face, and later giving the finger to the crowd.
The former Bulldogs star was hit with another $1000 sanction a week earlier for making an obscene gesture to the crowd after Geelong’s round five victory over Adelaide.
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“I think it’s very, very minor. The fact that it is a fine is bewildering to me,” Scott said of Smith’s Impey interaction.
“The same with obscene gestures. Maybe they’re a bit prudish at the AFL.”
While Scott said there was a behavioural framework that all players, including Smith, had to work within, he dismissed a suggestion they had to curtail their emotions to set a good example for junior footballers.
“You are going to go with the VAFA argument, which is, ‘We can’t have this sort of behaviour because it trickles down to the lower levels’?” Scott said to a reporter.
“I am not sure that that is our responsibility. I think we are elite. By world standards, this is as high as it gets.
“For them [the AFL] to be overlaying their obligation, that they have chosen to take to grassroots footy, onto us – absolutely when it comes to violence in the game and playing within the rules – [but] I think this stuff, it just doesn’t matter.
“In the modern world, if flipping the bird is just so horribly obscene and a shock to people’s senses, then I don’t know. That’s not the world I am living in.
“You get a lot more obscene stuff watching music videos on YouTube, I would suggest.”
