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Crows crisis: Star departs, police probe CEO’s rugby land deal

Sep 25, 2015
Fagan and University of Canberra vice-chancellor Stephen Parker announcing the Brumbies' partnership deal with the university in 2012.

Fagan and University of Canberra vice-chancellor Stephen Parker announcing the Brumbies' partnership deal with the university in 2012.

Crows chief executive Andrew Fagan says he doesn’t know whether he will be interviewed by federal police as they assess serious allegations of “anomalies” relating to a multi-million dollar property sale dating back to his tenure at Rugby Union franchise the ACT Brumbies.

The revelations are the latest to rock the Adelaide Football Club after a horror week, beginning with an on-field shellacking to end their 2015 season, and continuing with an AFL Integrity Unit investigation and the departure of All-Australian midfielder Patrick Dangerfield.

The Brumbies yesterday declared they had referred to ACT Policing the fruits of a nine month investigation by the club, the ARU and accounting firm KPMG’s forensic arm, which reportedly examined 50,000 emails and 45,000 pages of documents.

The club says the inquiry “related to a series of transactions and agreements that occurred between 2009 and 2013 and are linked to the sale of the Brumbies’ former headquarters at Griffith and the subsequent move to the University of Canberra”.

Fagan oversaw that move, enduring a controversial push to secure territory government approval for a $30 million, 130-apartment complex to be built at the Griffith site, which the club sold for $11.375 million, saving them from insolvency.

However, it is not known whether the alleged anomalies relate to any dealings in which Fagan was involved.

Current Brumbies chief Michael Jones said in a statement yesterday that the KPMG report “identified a number of unanswered questions in the transactions and agreements, and the board determined there was no alternative but to act in accordance with corporations law and refer the matter to the Police”.

“I want to stress that no current staff member is implicated in this matter in any way,” Jones said.

Fagan began as Brumbies general manager in 2002 and was promoted to chief executive in 2005. He resigned in December 2013, just months after signing a new one-year contract, saying: “It makes sense to (leave) now, I’ve been thinking about it for some time and in many respects I’ve been thinking about it for four years.”

“I agreed to extend for one final term, but the way the things have panned out this year … this is a much better time to depart the organisation,” he told the Canberra Times at the time.

“I’ve been presented with a number of opportunities but I haven’t been able to pursue them because of my commitment with the Brumbies.”

He was subsequently appointed the ARU General Manager of National Teams & Competitions in March last year before crossing to the Crows as CEO after the resignation of long-term chief Steven Trigg.

Jones told the Canberra Times this week it would be “up to the police” to decide if Fagan would be asked to help their investigations, and that he had not personally raised the anomalies with him.

ACT Policing sent InDaily a statement confirming “it has received a referral from the Brumbies and Australian Rugby Union that is currently being assessed”.

“It is not appropriate to make any further comment,” it said.

Fagan was asked about the matter during a media conference yesterday to discuss Dangerfield’s impending departure, responding: “I haven’t been contacted and I’m not sure whether I will be.”

“I’m certainly not across any of the details and therefore it’d be really difficult for me to comment,” he said.

This morning, Crows chairman Rob Chapman told ABC891 Fagan had spoken to him about the matter before it was raised publicly.

“He rang me yesterday … he got a bit of a heads up this was going to occur,” said Chapman.

“But the reality is no-one has spoken to Andrew; he hasn’t heard anything in the last 24 hours … in fact he hasn’t spoken to anyone from the Brumbies in the past 18 months.

“He’s not sure whether to expect a call … you’d like to think he will get contacted and we’ll know a little bit more then.”

Chapman said it was “no surprise” the matter was being taken seriously because of an increased focus on integrity issues in professional sport, adding it “could be just the slightest of details that they’re investigating”.

But, while he would not detail specific allegations, Jones suggested otherwise.

“Just prima facie, it’s serious enough for us to take it to the police,” he said.

“I want to reassure our partners, stakeholders, players, staff and members that these matters took place over two years ago and do not relate to our current on-field, commercial operations or governance arrangements.”

He said the matter was uncovered as a “housekeeping issue” after the move to its university base.

“I looked at a few documents and thought, ‘Oh, that’s a bit unusual’ and then once you started peeling back a few layers of it, more questions started to be asked,” he told the Canberra Times.

He didn’t detail the anomalies but said they broadly related to “property sales, investment in new property, partnerships, agreements”.

When he took the Brumbies role in January, Jones declared that “financially, there’s been a bit of a decay over the years”.

“I think a lot of the commercial arrangements that have been put in place in the past have been sub-optimal for this organisation and I hope to change that,” he said.

Questions over matters relating to Fagan’s tenure are a further blow for the Crows, who are enduring another nightmare off-season, with the departure of their marquee player Dangerfield and a league probe into allegations of the sharing of sensitive match-day information between Bulldog Michael Talia and his brother Daniel, the Crows’ reigning best-and-fairest.

Brownlow buddies? Best and fairest prospect Dangerfield and 2007 medallist Jimmy Bartel are likely to be teammates next year. Photo: AAP.

Player manager Liam Pickering, who manages both brothers, told The Footy Show last night they were “extremely angry and hurt and upset by what’s gone on”.

“The boys obviously can’t speak at the moment because there’s an AFL investigation, as much as they’d like to,” said Pickering.

He said Michael had “been left hanging out to dry” by his club, with calls to his coach Luke Beveridge unreturned.

“He’s not going to be there next year, as simple as that, which is really disappointing,” Pickering said.

“The last few days have played out really ordinary in the public…there’s been hysteria around it, you hear words like ‘treason’ and ‘treachery’ from journalists – it’s absolutely disgraceful.

“They’re brothers – they have discussions every second night.”

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