Adelaide Crows are expected to be hit with a severe penalty by the AFL at today's commission hearing into alleged draft tampering and salary cap rorting.
Adelaide Crows chief executive Steven Trigg could lose his position at today's hearing. Picture: Sarah Reed. Source: The Advertiser
AFL operations manager Adrian Anderson arrives at AFL House for the Commission meeting that will decide penalties for Adelaide and Kurt Tippett. Picture: Klein Michael Source: Herald Sun
AFL prosecutor Jeff Gleeson arrives. Picture: Klein Michael Source: Herald Sun
THE hearing into Adelaide and Kurt Tippett's salary cap breach has broken for lunch.
It is unknown how long the adjournment or the sitting will last, but the Adelaide Football Club's twitter feed has reported, "some time to go yet".
It had appeared the Crows' and Tippett's AFL hearing was drawing closer to an end after inaugural Crows chairman Bob Hammond left AFL House about 11.30am.
Hammond, also a former AFL commissioner, is understood to have appeared before today's league commission hearing as a character witness for club football operations manager Phil Harper.
The parties have been inside the closed hearing for almost six hours after arriving shortly before 8am today.
Crows officials and Tippett's representatives made a back-door arrival at the league's Docklands headquarters as they tried to dodge the waiting media pack.
Adelaide officials - chairman Rob Chapman, chief executive Steven Trigg, football operations manager Phil Harper and former football boss John Reid - refused to answer questions as they attempted to slip in through a back entrance.
Tippett and his legal crew headed by top QC David Galbally also tried to avoid the cameras as they entered through the same door.
Several AFL bosses including Adrian Anderson and female commissioner Sam Mostyn began arriving through the front door from about 7.40am.
Speculation suggests the Crows and Tippett are simply bargaining with the AFL on penalties.
Tippett is rumoured to be facing a 12-match suspension while the Crows are expecting a $300,000 fine and a ban from the first two rounds of next year's draft.
Questions will be asked from all of the parties, mitigating factors will be presented on behalf of the Crows and then it is understood there will be an adjournment for the AFL Commission to deliberate.
The player at the centre of Adelaide's greatest crisis, Tippett, is expected to plead not guilty to the charges levelled at him.
The Crows will argue:
THEY have not broken the salary cap, which cost Carlton so dearly in its penalties from the AFL in 2002, when they were restricted in two drafts and fined close to $1 million.
PLEADING guilty to all of the charges before the club does, is not an admission of wilfully breaking the rules or seeking personal gain.
THE charges were brought upon them by themselves, but not necessarily in a wilful or sinister fashion.
The Advertiser also understands Reid, who by right did not have to front the hearing - he no longer works in the game - will be happy to take the fall for the transgressions that have transpired.
Crows insiders have quashed speculation Harper may be the fall guy.
It was also Reid's field in which the alleged salary cap breaches and draft tampering happened when the original Tippett contract was drawn up in late 2009.
The careers of Trigg and Harper at West Lakes are set to be decided tomorrow.
If they get suspended for more than six months by the AFL, their positions with the Crows will most likely be seen as untenable.
Less than that, it becomes a judgment call for the board.
Chairman Rob Chapman yesterday sent an email to all of the club's members promising each member they would be contacted by a club director to explain what has transpired once the matter has been finalised.
Where to? Kurt Tippett has a big decision to make. Source: Herald Sun
Wait for Crows, Tippett verdict
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Wait for Crows, Tippett verdict
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Wait for Crows, Tippett verdict
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