Melbourne tanking scandal: New documents expose fresh allegations

Transcripts have revealed allegations of bullying and threats towards senior staff at the Melbourne Football Club to make sure they continued to lose matches during the 2009 season.

More than 80 pages of transcripts seen by the Herald Sun exposes interviews conducted with 58 current and former Demons staff in 2012, as part of a probe into allegations of tanking.

The newspaper report, by 3AW Football commentator Mick Warner, claims eight officials admitted the football department was directed not to win more than four games.

Click PLAY to hear Mick Warner discuss the story with Leigh Matthews, Matt Granland and Scott Cummings last night

To do that, players were kept off the field, injury reports were faked, and others were sent off for surgery.

The transcripts show then-coach Dean Bailey claimed he was told he would be sacked if he won games.

Gillon McLachlan, then the deputy AFL chief, said at the time there was no tanking on match day in his view.

Leigh Matthews told 3AW Football tanking was “as big an offence as you can have in footy.”

“If you can prove a club deliberately wasn’t trying their hardest … you would have thought that’s about as big an offence as you can have in footy,” he said.