BOMBSHELL new details emerge in Sydney scandal | 3AW Football

The Sydney spawn story continues of course being six o 'clock is when a lot of ruled out and this just coming to hand now is a statement on behalf of those five players just repeating Riley Bice, Nick Blakey, Isaac Heaney, James Jordan and Chad Warner. We're the W team, corporate partners and everyone at the club and the wider community. We accept the club sanction and apologize for the impact and the community that was on behalf of all the players. A man who's been reporting this brilliantly and for the Herald Sun is Andrew Dowsley and he joins us now. Good evening, Anthony. For those gentlemen, which we'd probably assume that Warner and Heaney would have been pretty much guaranteed a spot in that. And now we have the players' statement.Where is it all set?

women involved or the women who are the complainants making statements to police.There's been three statements made throughout the last few days and now we're at the point where there will be at some point the Swans players who were in that room will be asked to make a statement, a formal statement to police and will be most likely formally interviewed.

Our listeners will make the assumption, well what do they know?Is that the sanction from the club based off their standards of behaviour regarding the late night and what potentially other matters could have happened that evening?

Football clubs have protocols and standards which players have to live up to, especially on a night which would be considered a work night.My understanding is that the AFL pay for the hotel.So they are there under work conditions.Going out and being intoxicated, having women come to the room, I think obviously is outside the bounds of those policies.and obviously there's other things that have been alleged, but that will be the key reasons for the suspension of these players.

So, Anthony, as we came to air tonight, Tom Morris was on air, Channel 7, I'll play this for you.

Tonight we can reveal fresh details about what really happened in the early hours of Monday morning at the Pullman.Tonight we can tell you that there was drug use involved.It's unclear which players were involved in this drug use but I am willing to say tonight that there were multiple players that were taking cocaine.The players were not drug tested by the AFL in the days after and the club has been contacted for comment.Now the topless waitresses were booked through Party Girls Melbourne by a player and a third waitress also arrived at 5 .30pm.a $630 in total, plus tips for extra services and a deposit.

All three have now given a statement to police and the club has denied there were more than five players in the room.No players have been charged and all players are assisting the police with their investigation.

That was Tom Morris on Channel 7.Andy, is that stacking up with what you've been able to uncover?

There has been, it has filtered through since January.the beginning of this scandal that there were what they call baggies that were in the room.That means bags of cocaine.But that hasn't been necessarily something that we've been able to put to print.But that has been something we've been hearing since this all began.

I'm just going to play Andrew Pridham very shortly because I think the way that it was first addressed, I think it fell a little bit flat, but they've had a little bit of time and actually come out with a more considered approach that is better fitting.Let's listen to Andrew Pridham.

At the outset, I want to offer an apology, a sincere apology to the community, to our many, many fans.Our corporate partners have been amazingly supportive of us understanding that we are attempting to deal with this matter as quickly as we can, as honestly as we can, given the constraints of the police inquiry, and to very much be transparent in our dealings with the media.Everybody who's been impacted by these events, and we know it's impacted many, many people, ranging from the partners of our staff, our players, our women's partners, at what has occurred, and we know that many people are hurting, and we are providing support.

That response from Andrew Pridham was probably what people wanted in the first place?

Yeah, I think that they obviously have to do their due diligence and speak to the players themselves.They want to get on the front foot and acknowledge that they're not meeting the standards, but they don't want to actually go into the allegations of criminal conduct.That's the very line with it, what I think Mr Pridham was trying to sort of separate.And it's a difficult position to be in.They're trying to be transparent, but at the same time, they've got constraints.because obviously all I've written today that the players as far as I know are denying anything that happened in that room as for physical contact has been denied.

And everyone has the presumption of innocence and reading what you have written it is understood that Victorian Police Sex Crime Squad are investigating the alleged sexual assault of a woman and are focusing on the action.What do you expect are the next steps?The usual way this generally

plays out is that the police will take their time, so at some point they will have the information that they want, they'll cross -check statements made by witnesses, statements made by the complainants, and then they will interview the players.That is the general way it will work, and then from there they'll see if they have a case, they'll put together a brief of evidence, and then they'll get a recommendation for charges or not to charge.That's the general way this works.In this instance, we'll have to wait and see.

These get pretty messy and you've got more experience than most, Anthony.I know you've reported on cases like this for quite some time.You mentioned it's going to take a fair bit of time to get anywhere on this.What's your expectation as far as a timeline?I know things take as long as they need to take, but are you expecting this to be weeks, months?What are you thinking?

Well, I would, in my opinion, it would take months.but I don't know when the interviews will take place.After the interviews take place, they'll compile a brief and then they might move from there.But they can, once the interviews are finished, assuming there will be interviews, they can charge at that point and then put...

Antti, we really appreciate you coming on, of course, and on the thorough reporting as well.You've done a great job for the Herald Sun.Thanks for your time.Thank you.