One of the AFL’s most explosive stories broke thanks in part to an accidental text message sent to the wrong person.
Veteran sports journalist Caroline Wilson has revealed how a board member’s blunder handed her confirmation of the Melbourne tanking scandal, a story that would rock the AFL.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: The accidental text that broke the Melbourne tanking scandal
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Wilson was chasing what she believed was a major story late one evening when she rang a board member for confirmation. The source denied the story and convinced her it wasn’t accurate.
“I rang my sports editor and said, ‘look, I don’t think it’s going to, it’s not happening’,” Wilson recalled on The Agenda Setters.
But moments later, everything changed when her phone pinged with a text message from the same board member.
“Caro knows a little, but not a lot. Think it will break,” the message read.
The board member had meant to text another board member but accidentally sent it to Wilson instead.
“How lucky can you get?” Wilson said.
Armed with the accidental confirmation, Wilson immediately called her sports editor back with new instructions.
“I said, ‘scratch that’, and the story ran in The Age the next day,” she said.
The story confirmed the AFL would investigate Melbourne Football Club over tanking allegations, with evidence the league had been gathering.
When the board member realised his mistake and called Wilson to ask what she planned to do with the information, her response was blunt.
“I said, well, ‘(what do you think I’m going to do?)‘,” she said.
“Sometimes you just get lucky.”
In 2012, the Demons were investigated over allegations they deliberately lost matches in 2019 to gain a priority pick.
While they were ultimately cleared of specifically tanking, then coach Dean Bailey, general manager Chris Connolly and the club copped heavy sanctions for “acting in a manner that was prejudicial to the interests of the AFL”.
Bailey, who had been sacked as Demons coach in 2011 and was an assistant at Adelaide, was suspended for the first 16 matches of the 2013 season.
Connolly, who was still at the club in a role outside the football department, was suspended from serving in a position at any club for 12 months.
The club was fined a whopping $500,000.
