Richmond Are Boycotting Triple M After Eddie McGuire’s Joke About Drowning A Female Journo

While Collingwood President Eddie McGuire has been forced to apologise for his “playful banter” about drowning a woman on radio last week, the station that aired those comments has largely escaped any meaningful punishment. Until now.

The Richmond Football Club has decided to boycott all interviews with Triple M this weekend after McGuire and two other presenters — Danny Frawley and North Melbourne President James Brayshaw — joked about holding The Age’s chief football writer Caroline Wilson under water during ‘The Big Freeze’ match at the MCG. It follows a similar boycott by Bill Shorten, in which he cancelled an appearance on McGuire’s Triple M Hot Breakfast show on Tuesday.

The Tigers will take on Brisbane at the MCG on Saturday, in a match that will be broadcast on Triple M. But Tigers forward Jack Riewoldt said the team would not “partake in anything” with the station after senior players decided to show solidarity with Wilson, who has long-standing links to the club. (Her father, Ian, served as president for 10 years.)

Despite the odd off-field transgression, Richmond is a leader in championing women’s rights in the AFL. In 2014 the club instigated a gender equity project in collaboration with the AFL, and three years ago became the first club in the competition’s history to appoint a female president, American-born administrator Peggy O’Neal.

“Our club is a real leader for supporting women’s rights,” Riewoldt told Fox Footy’s AFL 360 program last night. “We’ve done a lot of things with chief executive Brendon Gale being a champion of change as well.”

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Triple M’s “Boys Club” Culture

Earlier this week, Wilson — who broadcasts for rival station 3AW — said she was disappointed it took more than seven days for McGuire’s comments to come to light. Initially discussed on the Outer Sanctum podcast, the story was eventually thrust into the mainstream media by online freelance journalist Erin Riley. “No one at the Triple M club had any real issue with what took place last Monday until they were called on it,” Wilson wrote in The Age, describing the station as a “gang”.

Earlier this week, a former Triple M employee told The ABC’s Drive program she decided to quit the station after enduring what she described as a sexist “boys club” culture. “I didn’t expect it to be so school yard,” she said. “I’m someone with a sense of humour, I’m not the most PC person in the world … [but] I felt like the misogyny was coming from a real place.”

In 2014 Triple M was criticised for its lack of diversity after tweeting out a photo of its all male 25-person team.

Latest survey…. And @TripleMMelb is back at #1! pic.twitter.com/JYFBgzok1G

— Triple M Footy (@triplemfooty) July 8, 2014

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h/t Fox Sports

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Lead image via Richmond FC/Facebook