There are a few layers of disappointment in this week’s Chiefs situation.
It seems likely some of the team are dicks. Going from reports, the disrespect shown would be crap from a first XV, let alone a professional group. There weren’t many Chiefs calling out bad behaviour among themselves, according to reports, etc.
It turns out the organisation isn’t as well-led as we thought. Where were team management when this mad Monday (always a bad idea) was going on? At the very top, CEO Andrew Flexman hasn’t taken a lot of responsibility – it’s fair to wait until after the investigation before handing out final judgement, but where are the messages that intimidating anyone is unacceptable for his team? The nit picking half apologies, wagon circling and complete lack of empathy for the victims are unacceptable to me as a fan.
Now we’re questioning if this team, with our magical coach and lead by fine men like Liam Messam, Hika Elliott and the rest is smoke and mirrors. From the outside, it seemed our team culture was one of the strongest around, and the last few days have me questioning everything.
How does this get put right? It’d be fantastic to see some strong leadership from here on out, genuine contriteness and steps put in place to address what’s transpired with those affected.
Up until Tuesday, the Chiefs were a wonderful and entertaining team I was proud to support and take my entire family along to enjoy. I’d really like to be able to wholeheartedly support my team again please.
Sadly, many people not quite as enlightened as yourself would’ve nodded in agreement with Flexman’s ad hominem comments. Shameful, but shows how far we have to go to sort out this misogynistic boys’ club culture. What I find astounding is how people are analysing this as if rugby players are some special humans who require Foster parents (pun intended)/chaperones/managers. Remove their special status and they’re plain knob-end adults being rapey morons acting in a pack mentality.
Retrospectively, it shows they need to give some of these guys some parenting/media training. At least, they need to train them to think about repercussions of what they’re about to embark on (I think the term for this is “being an adult”). Hire a stripper? Prostitute? Try to rape a stripper? Get so drunk that they make bad decisions like this? It’s not that different from the Leicester-Thailand incident. Should players be identified and contracts torn up? I think so. Flexman’s position should be reviewed, too. They’ve brought the sport into disrepute and should be sanctioned heavily.
At the very least they need to apologise profusely to the stripper and arrange to pay her in full, add in some sort of reparations, and do significant quantities of charitable activities to address the cultural, sexual and basic maturity issues that these idiots have exposed.