Darren Jolly, Collingwood’s number one ruckman has highlighted the lack of Truth to Power in the AFL in his most recent article Paying The Price For Simply Being Honest.
Jolly highlights that people need to be responsible for what they say, but the current restrictions on players and coaches means that they are briefed prior to interviews to ensure that they don’t say anything that could upset the AFL.
This form of censurship doesn’t mean that opinions contrary to those of the AFL don’t exist. Clearly they do. Political correctness is not necessarily healthy for an organisation either. The recent collapse of the Hastie Group is evidence of that.
Why can’t healthy debate be encouraged? What is the benefit of driving contrary opinions underground? In fact I’d argue that reducing healthy debate is more unhealthy for the AFL that the sanitised drivvle that most players and coaches share publicly because they ‘can’t’ say what they really think.
It’s time to support Darren Jolly and encourage the debate about being able to debate within the AFL to be started.
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