Former Demons coach Dean Bailey during a game in 2009. Denis Pagan says the AFL should show restraint on penalising the Dees. Source: Herald Sun
FORMER Carlton coach Denis Pagan has urged the AFL to show restraint in penalising Melbourne for tanking, as the league's inaction on banning priority picks comes under fire.
Pagan said yesterday that banning Melbourne from the November 22 draft would set the Demons back a decade given their fragile state.
The AFL has promised severe penalties if tanking is proven, yet it was so unconcerned by claims that tanking existed in 2009 that priority picks were rubber-stamped by an official review in November that year.
The AFL review considered whether to abolish the picks or tighten the eligibility criteria to see clubs handed pre-draft selections.
The only change made under the review was to slot the first-round priority pick behind the first three national draft picks of expansion clubs Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney.
But that decision was based more on keeping the purity of expansion selections than watering down the priority pick.
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Only this February did the AFL make it all but impossible to win a pre-draft priority pick, with clubs told they need levels of Fitzroy-esque performance over multiple years to qualify.
An AFL executive submission to abolish all priority picks in 2005 was also knocked back by the AFL Commission.
Pagan yesterday said the league had to be careful in how it penalised the Demons, who are hopeful the league will have made no decision by the national draft.
The North Melbourne premiership coach was in charge when the AFL stripped two seasons of draft picks from the Blues for salary cap sanctions and fined them nearly $1 million.
He said yesterday he agreed with Blues ex-president Ian Collins, who believes Carlton should have "handed the keys" back to the AFL.
"It was a nightmare. Every day for five years I thought, 'Is this going to stop?'," Pagan told SEN.
"There were so many innocent people affected by it and all the perpetrators were gone. I don't think people realise how close it was to handing the keys back in.
"They should think long and hard before they do what they did to Carlton because it put Carlton back 10 years. If they do it (to Melbourne) before this draft it would put them back eight to 10 years."
The AFL in 2009 denied repeated claims of Melbourne's tanking, with league chief Andrew Demetriou calling media scrutiny of Melbourne's experimental tactics "absolutely disgraceful".
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