Emails between Cats, AFL at the centre of club’s Kolodjashnij defence

Geelong’s defence of their handling of the controversial agreement it struck with Jake Kolodjashnij will include email correspondence between AFL and Cats’ officials as they liaised on the informed consent document before it was signed off in early February 2024.

The Cats have accepted that the document was not lodged with the AFL, and should not have included a line which former club president Craig Drummond described as a waiver, but they want to defend the notion that the deal was struck without consultation with the league.

AFL boss Andrew Dillon wrote to all 18 clubs on Monday reminding them of their responsibilities when making any arrangements that involve the health and safety of players. Geelong have until the end of Tuesday to submit their response to the AFL investigation.

Three industry sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the conversations, confirmed to this masthead that key figures at the AFL were aware of the negotiations taking place between the club and the player as well as external insurance officials with emails expected to back that up.

The Cats sought advice and guidance from the AFL in devising a path forward for Kolodjashnij, who wanted to play despite having a history of concussion, but devised the final document based on a previous informed consent agreement that had allowed a player to resume his career in the VFL in 2021.

The language in that document was similiar to Geelong’s Kolodjashnij’s “waiver” but the 2021 agreement was lodged with the AFL and had the consent of the AFL Players’ Association, multiple sources have confirmed.

One source said the Cats entered into conversations with Kolodjashnij’s representatives about what informed consent might entail only after making sure the player had strong insurance coverage if his career ended due to concussion.

But the Cats will concede the league did not see the final document which arose because Kolodjashnij has received an inconclusive finding from the AFL’s independent concussion panel, which left the decision whether he could continue his career in 2024 in Geelong’s hands.

The investigation comes as AFL club doctors push for the league to introduce documents in which players make voluntary acknowledgements of the risks they face before taking the field when their future is clouded by repeated concussions.

A club medical source, familiar with the increasingly agitated ranks of club doctors on the issue of concussions and their exposure, said the majority of AFL club doctors want to see players who have repeated concussions sign a document that acknowledges their risk, as in the Kolodjashnij case.

But the crucial difference between the Geelong document and what the bulk of AFL club doctors are seeking is that the Cats also inserted the clause in which Kolodjashnij signed away – on paper – some of his legal rights, clauses which some say are arguably not enforceable under common law.

The apparent intention was to absolve the club of some responsibility for future head injuries and put the onus on the player after he was given an ambiguous finding by the AFL’s concussion panel.

Geelong’s then club doctor David Long was the main author of the club’s 2024 document, which is about 30 pages, that has caused such fallout since last Thursday, but he and fellow Cats doctor Jimmy McLaren did not compose the short part of the document that caused the fallout, in which the player took on the physical and legal risks of continuing to play.

This masthead has confirmed that in a letter to Kolodjashnij (first reported on SEN), Dr Long said his advice was that “if you wish to avoid increasing the risks associated with concussion and contact sport, that you cease playing contact sport, effective immediately”.

Geelong, meantime, wants any penalty to act as a catalyst for the league to develop a more robust compliance process for players who receive an ambiguous finding from the concussion panel on whether they can keep playing.

Geelong board member and Australian men’s cricket coach Andrew McDonald said the club welcomed the investigation.

Cats president Grant McCabe said the club’s response to the AFL’s “please explain” would be submitted by the end of Tuesday.

“It’s been a difficult week for the club, Jake, the supporters. We had a board meeting this morning, I was a part of that, up until a certain point, then I had some other commitments [at training],” McDonald said.

“We’ve got until tomorrow afternoon as I know it to get back to the AFL, so we welcome that investigation and where that may land, and hopefully we can move forward from that.

“It’s a topical issue and hopefully some good can come out of it. I know at the moment there’s an investigation, but as we get through that, hopefully some good can come of the conversation. It’s an incredibly important topic, and the duty of care is something that fundamentally the Geelong footy club buys into.”

McDonald added that his experience in cricket was that managing players’ return from head knocks could be extremely complex.

Former Victorian batter Will Pucovski, who played a Test for Australia, retired after multiple concussions.

“There were some pretty high-profile conversations during my time in coaching Victoria. The education comes from the medical team, and there’s a lot of grey within it,” McDonald said.

“Even with the players we had in Victoria, stepping through that, you’re never sure when they’re definitively right to return to play, but we’ve come a long way in the conversation, I think for the better.”

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