Bailey Smith’s social media activity is causing some concern at Geelong, with chief executive Steve Hocking admitting they will look at the AFL star’s headline-grabbing posts.
Hocking also strongly denied there was a cover-up in the AFL investigation of the Cats’ third-party payments, which resulted in a $77,500 fine – $40,000 of it suspended.
He added former Geelong chief financial officer Simon Kelleher, who now works at the AFL, was kept out of the league’s extended audit of the club.
While Smith’s move to Geelong and his comeback from a knee reconstruction have been undoubted successes this year, he is a lightning rod for controversy.
He escaped AFL or club sanction last month for abusing Geelong Advertiser photographer Alison Wynd during an open training session.
Most recently, his social media from the players’ Mad Monday function last month provoked the ire of bisexual former AFL player Mitch Brown, who referred to one of Smith’s posts as homophobic.
Veteran journalist Caroline Wilson also wrote a column on the weekend, furious at how he had depicted her.
“When you come off-field, the interest in him is just unbelievable. He has a very different relationship with social media to … our age profile,” Hocking said on Thursday in a wide-ranging SEN interview.
“I don’t understand it at all.
“He works that exceptionally well. There will be a time, in my view, and this will involve all of us over the off-season, where we just need to have some reflection.
“It’s not about tiptoeing around someone like Bailey but more about tailoring it accordingly.
“We’re really, really early in the relationship.”
Hocking also reiterated the club’s crackdown on Mad Monday, which will be changed.
“There are certain individuals who have dressed up inappropriately and we apologise … we’ve been quite clear on that,” he said.
Hocking said the AFL investigation into their third-party arrangements was “intensive”.
“As far as vindication goes, I’m certainly not sitting here and going ‘you beauty’ and punching the air,” he said.
“It’s been six months’ work of work and if I said to either one of you, you’re going to hand over your laptop and your phone … they were taken for four hours.
“There will be a range of people out there who think there’s a cover up, I’ve had a relationship at the AFL, I’ve worked there, Geelong may have been receiving some favours – it’s not the case.
“It’s actually one of the more trying things I’ve been involved in.”
Hocking said Geelong was now a destination club for top players because “the postcode really has helped us enormously … it is the place of choice”.
He was asked about Kelleher, who joined the AFL late last year in a role where he liaises with clubs about financial matters, including audits.
“Really importantly, no – (he was) kept very separate by the AFL,” Hocking said.
He added Geelong realised they needed to put their player payments and football department soft-cap spending under the AFL’s microscope.
“Other clubs were starting to question, ‘how do you get access to these players?’ They don’t understand how frugal we are when it comes to managing our list and TPP.
“Off the back of that, we identified this and then what we did was, we said ‘hey, I think we need to hand ourselves over and open right up here’. Wherever this goes, it goes.
“If you end up with too many barnacles on the boat, it’s only going to go one way. We need to remove a few of those.”
