Eddie McGuire has fired back at a politician over what he sees as “smart alec” remarks about the AFL’s heavy reliance on sports betting for revenue.
Gillon McLachlan and Andrew Abdo, the chief executives of the AFL and NRL respectively, appeared at a heated parliamentary inquiry into online betting on Tuesday.
Labor MP and inquiry chair Peta Murphy made a comment that disgruntled McLachlan.
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“The sky’s not going to fall in (if advertisement of sports betting is removed or reduced). AFL’s not going to be left not being able to find another sponsor,” Murphy said.
“I’m not sure it works like that,” McLachlan replied.
“We have partners in every category.
“There would be a net loss.
“I don’t take that premise as being real. I understand the theory of it.
“There would be a net loss of revenue and then decisions would have to be made.
“We’re not for profit. We actually spend that money for running access and a pathway into our game at a community and an elite level, and the committee needs to understand that.
“I don’t believe that brand advertising per say is too much; I think the inducements are a problem.”
McGuire took aim at Murphy on Nine’s Footy Classified on Wednesday.
“It does annoy me when politicians get up with smart alec questions like that when, in fact, they were the ones who legislated it in the first place, that poker machines came into the community, that sports betting was brought in,” McGuire said.
“I would have liked to have seen Gil McLachlan say there, ‘OK, here’s what we’ll do: we’ll cut out sports betting, but you give us the tax and put it into football and put it into the television industry and put it into something that you legalised and legislated to be allowed to happen’.
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“Don’t just get 20 years down the track.
“We’ve been talking over this for 15 years, about the amount of sports betting. I brought it up at a presidents meeting when my five-year-old said to me at three-quarter time, ‘Dad, dad, we’ve won’. I said, ‘What are you talking about? There’s still a quarter to go’. He said, ‘We’re a $1.01’, because there was nothing there other than (sports-betting advertisement).
“So I get it, but I get a little bit (sick) of this, ‘Oh, the world won’t fall in’. Oh yeah, money’s just growing on trees, is it?”
A survey of 3000 people conducted by the AFL Fans Association found the volume of gambling advertisement had become the primary concern of supporters, with umpiring, the cost of going to the footy and scheduling the other most common worries.
Three quarters of those involved in the survey supported a ban on television and radio gambling advertisement.
The parliamentary inquiry into online gambling was launched in September last year.
Its purpose is to assess whether the laws, regulations, consumer protections, education and support in place are sufficient in the fight against harm caused by online gambling.
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