The AFL community has reacted with disgust after former Adelaide footballer Eddie Betts posted a confronting recollection of his experience at a pre-season camp with the Crows in early 2018.
The leadership camp, following the Crows’ 2017 AFL Grand Final loss to Richmond, put the club in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Several players and officials left the club after the pitch, and Betts has now detailed behind-the-scenes information in his forthcoming autobiography. The boy from Boomerang Crescent.
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The four-day camp on the Gold Coast left Betts feeling “like a part of me had been brainwashed”, with Nine Newspapers reporting extracts.
Betts alleged that confidential information she shared in counseling sessions had been misused, writing that the camp misappropriated sensitive Aboriginal cultural rituals.
After the Test, three-time All-Australian Betts said he approached the Crows and expressed his concerns about the camp, only to be dropped from the leadership group three weeks later.
Betts said the pitch had a huge impact on his form and left the star forward questioning his place in the game. He left the Crows and returned to Carlton in late 2019 before retiring at the end of 2021.
Speaking on behalf of the club, Adelaide chief executive Tim Silvers apologized to Betts on Wednesday.
“Anyone who leaves our club who doesn’t have a positive experience, we’re sorry,” he told a press conference.
“I think we can move forward, but we would like to apologize to Eddie and anyone else who had a negative experience on the field.”
Adelaide board member Mark Ricciuto, who represented the club for 15 seasons, responded to the damning allegations on Wednesday morning.
“It’s sad to hear Eddie write that, because he’s been one of the greats at the footy club,” Ricciuto said in Adelaide. Triple M breakfast with Roo, Ditts and Loz.
“I’m not sure if there’s anyone who’s excited the crowd more than Eddie Betts – Tony Modra is up there, and those two are in another group, really … amazing players at the football club.
“The welfare of the players is always number one, no matter what. You always want everyone to be happy and all that. It’s very sad that Eddie has written this, and I think the club has gone on record at times to say that they’ve acknowledged that it wasn’t handled perfectly.
“Everything had good intentions, but it didn’t go perfectly. They have recognized it.
“We all love Eddie, and we hope Eddie gets over it. That was four years ago, the club has certainly moved on from that and is looking to the future and has won a lot since then.
“He’s been in Eddie’s book and that’s fair enough, and hopefully Eddie will also move on and the club can go on to bigger and better things.”
Betts’ revelations have angered the football community. Former Swans star Ryan Fitzgerald, who is a huge Crows fan, tweeted: “Very uncomfortable to read. Particularly the insensitivity around Eddie’s past. He is such an integral part of the AFC and its history , so dejected that he left feeling that way.”
Former Melbourne captain Garry Lyon also reacted NO Breakfast: “When you read those words from Eddie, there’s no debating how it affected him.
“It talks about the indigenous players, the cultural differences or the sensitivities that were not respected. That’s Eddie… and that’s unequivocal, right? You can’t argue with any of that.
“Everybody’s experiences have been caught up in that and from an Indigenous point of view, a lot of Eddie said cultural sensitivities were not respected, and that’s very, very real.
“In the end, it was unsustainable. Let’s talk about the atmosphere and the environment… tick off who you agree with and who you don’t, the truth is that it split the club down the middle. When you’ve got the (Rory) Sloanes and the (Taylor) Walkers, who have their memory, and then you’ve got Eddie and others, I imagine … it’s no wonder he destroyed that joint.
“You’ve got a section of the football club, and I’m not just putting it at the feet of Walker and Sloane, there might be others in the same boat, who are saying, ‘I got a lot out of this, it was good’ . And on the other hand, right at the other end of the scale, you have, “No, it wrecked me, it wrecked my relationship.”
“It’s no surprise then, from the point of view of the football club and trying to stay together and on the same page, he ended up where he was.
“If you’re told, whether you’re black or white or otherwise, ‘These people in the camp want to talk to you and they’re telling you to get away from everyone else in private and we want you to have a conversation where you’re open and vulnerable.’ … And I’m like, ‘Okay. As far as building myself as a better player and leader, I’m going to share and give you these sensitive things that, to me, are important.’ Then get back in my face , that’s not cultural for me.
“How it affects me and someone else may be different depending on the culture, but that’s a betrayal to me.”
Speaking WITHOUT SA Breakfastex-Port Adelaide star Kane Cornes has questioned Adelaide’s leadership, calling out Crows star Rory Sloane for his public comments after the camp when he said it made him a better husband and father.
“The question is, all the people who have stood up for the pitch and said nothing, including the Crows fans, including Mark Ricciuto, including the club, what do they do now? Details have come out, Eddie Betts was abused by his mother Cornes said.
“The saddest thing for me, the two most popular players in Adelaide are Tony Modra and Eddie Betts. No one made Adelaide Oval stand up when he approached football in Crows history like Eddie Betts. No one has been more popular.
“This is the rung Eddie Betts is on. To read how he was treated by his own football club, of which he is an icon, was the saddest thing for me.
“Now we have a blow-by-blow account which is quite appalling that your most popular player in the history of the club has been treated like an animal in this camp.
“I think it’s embarrassing for Rory Sloane and Taylor Walker to hear now that that was a rehearsed line and they were all told and indoctrinated to say that it made them a better father, husband and son. And to see Eddie Betts say this was rehearsed doesn’t paint Rory and his leadership very well.
“There’s a lot of egg on the faces of the Crows supporters, the football club and some of the players who were there.”
The Crows were cleared of any occupational health and safety breaches following an independent investigation into the training ground by SafeWork SA.
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