Australia -- Betting Allegations Again with Football Player

The Australian Football League has had some difficulties involving players who have been discovered to be gambling on games, and this has flown in the face of a very strict anti-gambling policy on the part of the organization. But they are now grappling with another controversy surrounding a competitor who is currently under investigation.

Lachie Hunter plays for the Western Bulldogs, and apparently he is not the only player who is said to have bet on football. A little more than a week ago, the Bulldogs were beaten by Melbourne, and that is certainly the focus of one inquiry by the AFL's Integrity Unit.

This was evidently a matter of the players identifying themselves, rather than being "caught." And those who have turned themselves over to the league are reportedly cooperating fully with the current investigation.

The reports that have come out in newspaper accounts are unclear as to whether Hunter is someone who has come forward or has been "outed" by other players, but inside sources have named him nonetheless. The team itself would not confirm the names of any players.

Gillon McLachlan, the chief executive of the league, said that it was not plausible that players betting on AFL matches would not know that it was a flagrant violation of the league rules.

According to one other source, who spoke to The Age, a player in the VFL had actually used Hunter's telephone betting account to place the AFL bets, and for that reason, it was possible that Hunter would avoid official league sanctions. That would also explain the self-reporting, if it was indeed done by Hunter.

Peter Gordon, the president of the Bulldogs, was downplaying the incident, saying that "This is young men having a bet on a Saturday afternoon and something erroneous may have occurred." Gordon went on to acknowledge that all the AFL teams probably had players who placed wagers on sports, in one form or another, and that "betting is endemic to the culture." He insists that the entire thing has become overblown.

McLachlan responded by saying "our job is to make sure that they make grown-up decisions in the best informed and educated way they can." Indications are that the investigation will not take all that long, and that if there is a need for disciplinary action against the VFL player who actually made bets, it would be done within the jurisdiction of the VFL and not the AFL.

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