Swans Call In The Culture Doctors: Riggsy’s Seen This Film Before

Right, settle in, because when a club starts talking about engaging ‘external advisers’ to look at the ‘culture’, I get a little twitch in my eye. I’ve lived it. I’ve seen the consultants with the lanyards and the whiteboards and the gentle, concerned voices, and I’m here to tell Sydney Swans fans: welcome to the club nobody wants to join.

News broke this week that the Swans have brought in outside help to review things at the club following that Melbourne hotel incident back in August, which saw five players suspended, and now Tom Papley’s alleged positive roadside drug test has landed like a second grenade in the same paddock. CEO Matthew Pavlich said he was ‘bitterly disappointed’, which is corporate-speak for ‘mate, I did not sign up for this when I took the job’.

The hotel incident, the suspensions, and now this

Let’s recap for anyone who’s been living under a rock, or more sensibly, just enjoying their off-season without doom-scrolling footy news. Five Swans players were suspended after an incident at a Melbourne hotel in August. Details were murky, as these things often are early, but it was serious enough that the club acted internally and the whole thing cast a shadow over what should’ve been a promising finals hangover period for a club that’s been building something decent.

Then this week, it’s alleged Tom Papley returned a positive roadside drug test. I want to be really careful here because this is an allegation at this stage, not a proven fact, and Papley is entitled to due process like anyone else. But perception in footy is a brutal thing, and when you stack an alleged incident on top of a suspension saga that’s barely cooled down, the narrative writes itself whether it’s fair or not.

Why ‘culture review’ makes every footy fan groan a little

I’ll be honest, the phrase ‘cultural review’ makes my skin crawl a bit, not because it’s a bad idea, but because every club that’s ever said it has basically admitted the quiet part out loud: something’s gone sideways and we don’t fully understand why. Essendon fans know this drill better than almost anyone in the comp. We’ve had reviews, sub-reviews, review of the reviews, external panels, integrity officers, the lot. At one point I reckon our club had more consultants walking the corridors than actual list spots.

Does it work? Sometimes. Sometimes it’s genuinely useful, a fresh set of eyes spotting blind spots that insiders are too close to see. Other times it’s theatre, a way for a club to be seen doing something while the actual rot keeps growing underneath. The Swans will be hoping for the former. History suggests it’s a coin flip at best.

Pavlich’s bind: protecting the brand while cleaning house

Spare a thought for Pavlich here, genuinely. He’s walked into a situation where he has to be the adult in the room, publicly disappointed but privately trying to figure out whether this is one rogue off-season or a genuine systemic issue. CEOs in this spot have an impossible balancing act: come down too hard publicly and you look like you’re throwing players under the bus before any Tribunal or legal process has run its course; go too soft and the fans and media accuse you of protecting the club’s reputation over doing the right thing.

I’ve watched our own leadership group at Essendon navigate that tightrope more times than I’d like to admit. You learn pretty quickly that there’s no perfect answer, just degrees of less-bad. Pavlich’s ‘bitterly disappointed’ line is the classic middle path: acknowledge the seriousness, show the fans you’re not ignoring it, but don’t prejudge anything that still has to go through proper process.

A word on Papley, and a word on getting ahead of ourselves

On Papley specifically, I want to stress the obvious: an alleged positive roadside test is not the same as a finding of guilt, and he deserves the same presumption of innocence as any bloke in any workplace in the country. The AFL has its own illicit drugs policy that runs separately from any police or legal matter, and roadside testing is a state government, not an AFL, process. These things can get conflated in the public conversation pretty quickly and it’s worth slowing down before anyone starts handing out verdicts in the comments section.

What we can say is that the timing is shocking for Sydney. One serious incident is a bad week. Two inside a few months starts to look like a pattern, fair or not, and that’s exactly the kind of optics that forces a club’s hand into bringing in outside help, whether they think they truly need it or not.

What an external review can actually fix – and what it can’t

From my years of accidetnally becoming an expert on this stuff thanks to my own club’s adventures, here’s the honest truth: a review can map out where communication breaks down, where leadership group structures are weak, where young blokes aren’t getting the support they need off-field, and where club culture around alcohol and nightlife needs a genuine reset rather than just a memo. That’s valuable work.

What it can’t do is instantly change twenty-year-old blokes with money, fame and free time into monks. Football clubs are made up of young men living high-pressure, high-profile lives, and no consultant’s report eliminates human error completely. The best outcome is a club that’s more alert, more supportive, and quicker to intervene before things become headlines. The worst outcome is a glossy document that sits in a drawer while nothing actually changes in the sheds.

Where this leaves the Swans heading into 2025

Sydney have real list talent and genuine flag aspirations, and that’s precisely why this saga stings extra. Nobody wants their pre-season dominated by Tribunal updates, MRO gradings and integrity headlines instead of talk about the midfield brigade or the forward line rotations. I know that feeling in my bones.

My honest take, for what it’s worth from a bloke who’s watched his own club go through the wringer more than once: external reviews work best when the club actually listens to the uncomfortable findings rather than just releasing a statement and moving on. If Sydney genuinely use this process to shift the culture rather than just survive a news cycle, they’ll come out the other side stronger. If it’s just a PR exercise, they’ll be back here again in twelve months, and trust me, that’s not a club anyone envies being.

Either way, here’s hoping for everyone involved, players included, that due process plays out properly and the footy conversation can get back to where it belongs: on the field.