Crime threats, nude pics and a Tinder date: Inside the AFL’s most secretive unit

A high-profile figure in the AFL industry was interstate when he received a phone call from the AFL Integrity and Security Unit.He had opened his home to a player who was struggling with personal issues and mounting financial problems, to help the player rebuild his life. It’s not unusual for officials, coaches and players to allow others going through a difficult period to stay with them.The AFL Integrity and Security Unit exists to protect the league and its people. Has it drifted from its original purpose? Aresna VillanuevaThe high-profile figure was informed that several men known to police in two black Maseratis were parked outside his house – lights on, engines running.But the player, who had accumulated a substantial debt, was not home at the time. His host’s family was.Three sources with knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to discuss security issues, said the integrity unit, acting on police intelligence, worked with authorities to relocate the family to alternative accommodation while the immediate risk was assessed.Beyond a small circle of police, AFL officials and the people directly affected, almost nobody knew the operation had taken place.AFL chief executive and former general counsel Andrew Dillon.Justin McManusThis masthead has chosen not to identify the player, who continues his football career, or the industry figure to protect their safety, but the incident provides a rare glimpse into one aspect of the work undertaken by the AFL Integrity Unit.“They support clubs to manage situations which never hit the headlines, some of it messy and difficult, other matters which are just important to the overall health of the game,” said one senior club official, granted anonymity to speak freely.“My experience is that they are professional, low-key and important.”Another said: “I would rate its [the unit’s] work as nine out of 10.”However, an investigation by this masthead reveals concerns about the volume of work the integrity unit is stretched across, and whether it has veered too far from its original purpose, to protect the game and its people from the threat of corruption, doping and organised crime.The same senior officials who praise the unit’s work are also concerned that its credibility and the quality of its work will suffer due to the exploding workload, and wonder how much of their expertise is used to settle matters that have more to do with the code’s reputation than integrity.One competition source asked: “At what point as an employer do you have an overview of the moral conduct of employees?”One of its investigations threatens to be unpicked in open court as part of a defamation case brought by Cate Sayers against her estranged husband Luke, former president of Carlton, who was cleared by the AFL of posting a “dick pic” on social media.How, many in the industry ask, did the AFL integrity unit become involved in a club official’s marital crisis?Luke Sayers, Dustin Martin Steven May have all been the subject of AFL integrity investigations. Cate Sayers (second from left) has been critical of the league.Matt WillisIt’s no surprise that the sheer variety of issues falling on its desk can make it difficult to decide which ones to investigate. This year alone it has probed why police visited Melbourne premiership player Steven May’s house, whether a Gold Coast Suns team manager with links to a gambling company should be around the team, Elijah Hollands’ movements before he played for Carlton on that fateful night in April, and whether homophobic language was used in the middle of a VFL game in Frankston.To say that is the tip of the iceberg is, to those who know, a massive understatement.In a rare public comments about the unit in response to questions from this masthead, the AFL acknowledged the huge increase in its responsibilities, which include the conduct of players and officials, anti-doping, wagering integrity, safeguarding, respect and responsibility, registration policies, major event security, risk and emergency management and intelligence functions across all levels of Australian football.“Matters are assessed and managed in accordance with AFL rules, regulations, and policies, with regular reporting and oversight provided through the AFL’s governance framework. Any criminal matters are managed by the relevant state or territory police [law enforcement agency],” part of an AFL statement said.“The scale and complexity of the department’s responsibilities have grown significantly over time, especially at a community level, and we continue to look at our operating model to ensure it is best placed to protect people, competitions and the game.”Scroll down to read the AFL statement in full. What does the integrity unit do? The unit, which has 13 full-time staff, undertakes hundreds of investigations annually and assesses more than 1500 intelligence reports each year, mostly relating to community football.The number of intelligence reports was much lower when the unit only concerned itself with registered officials across the AFL and AFLW. But that changed after the 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, which put the onus on organisations to become involved in child safeguarding across community sport, too. AFL integrity boss Tony Keane, who is a former homicide detective.AAPThe AFL’s purchase of Marvel Stadium in 2016, and federal legislation relating to crowded spaces, had already increased the AFL’s responsibilities for security at stadiums and events. An integrity portal introduced in 2015, which allows people to make anonymous complaints, also increased the workload. (One source said the portal was valuable in providing a stream of intelligence to the AFL.)It means the unit covers 10,000 registered officials including players, coaches, administrators, media, broadcasters, catering staff and contractors as it hosts close to 1000 matches a year, 400 events and 20 concerts. It liaises closely with those managing the 25 venues across the nation.Integrity Unit boss Tony Keane, a former homicide detective, also received AFL approval to operate a private security business for businesses and individuals outside the AFL who wanted to pay for his expertise. This raised eyebrows among senior club officials.Betting bans and a nude photoBrett Clothier would enter a swipe card protected office in AFL House wearing his familiar beige trench coat and a cool demeanour after being poached from the racing industry in 2008 by then chief executive Andrew Demetriou to be the league’s first Integrity manager.The AFL had jumped into bed with gambling companies in a mutually beneficial arrangement that industry sources, speaking anonymously because of commercial sensitivities, said adds an estimated $70 million to the AFL coffers annually.Former AFL boss Andrew Demetriou.2007The league earned a product fee from each bet and worked with gambling companies to ensure the competition itself remained beyond suspicion. Gambling companies could provide betting data and identify irregularities in gambling patterns while Clothier chased down any player or official who infringed the rules by betting on games or passing on information that could affect a betting market.The AFL argued the money would otherwise go offshore into unregulated markets where dubious activity went unmonitored.In 2010 Port Adelaide ruckman Matt Primus was suspended for two matches and a goal umpire, timekeeper, interchange steward and club runner were also penalised. In 2011, Collingwood pair Nick Maxwell and Heath Shaw fell foul of betting rules, and later that year Gold Coast recruit Nathan Bock was suspended when others became aware he would start forward, thereby increasing his chances of kicking the game’s first goal.Clothier, who declined to be interviewed for this story, soon recognised the AFL needed investigative muscle applied to salary cap compliance and anti-doping. Those administering those areas were happy to hand over that responsibility.Heath Shaw and NIck Maxwell fell foul of betting rules. Paul Rovere. In 2011, Clothier’s team expanded when former UN investigator Abraham Haddad became the AFL intelligence co-ordinator as the AFL guarded against the infiltration of bad faith actors into the game.Apart from investigating the odd behavioural issue such as the distribution of a nude photo of Lara Bingle (now Worthington) by Brendan Fevola (the AFL cleared him of a rules breach), their basic focus remained on core integrity issues.The pair of investigators gathered information, referred their brief of evidence to the AFL’s legal team, Simon Clarke and senior counsel Andrew Dillon (now CEO), before making recommendations to the AFL Commission, which determined penalties.Only the less than satisfactory conclusion to Melbourne’s tanking scandal in 2013 caused major issues for the unit. (The Demons were cleared of “tanking” but fined $500,000 for conduct prejudicial to the interests of the game.)Yet almost as soon as the integrity framework was operating, its original mandate was overtaken by the sprawling Essendon supplements saga, an investigation that changed both the scale of the department and public expectations of what it was supposed to do.Essendon’s then chairman David Evans, centre, with chief executive Ian Robson, left, and coach James Hird when the club self-reported its supplements regime in 2013.Wayne TaylorWhile the media coverage of that saga roared for many years (and the AFL was forced into an uncomfortable working arrangement with ASADA, the country’s anti-doping police), the integrity unit worked hard in the background to ensure club processes (secure storage and documentation) around supplements and their use improved, and each club set up its own integrity and risk committee. They wanted to prevent integrity breaches before they occurred, educating participants on ways to reduce risk.In 2014, the AFL strengthened their investigative team when they appointed former policemen Gerard Ryan and Tony Keane.It was then, sources say, that the modern integrity unit was born.The Tinder date and the chopsticks affairThe Integrity Unit learned early that the first version of a story was almost never the last.Late on a Saturday night in December 2015, one of the competition’s biggest stars became embroiled in an incident inside the fashionable Mr Miyagi restaurant in Windsor. Within hours, the rumour mill was in overdrive. Dustin Martin, after a day drinking at the Stereosonic music festival, had allegedly threatened a woman with a pair of chopsticks.Martin had been sitting alone at the bar when a television producer from Sydney walked in.What happened over the next few minutes triggered parallel investigations by Victoria Police and the AFL, each determined to establish what had actually occurred rather than what was being loudly alleged.The woman at the centre of the complaint, who was at the restaurant on a Tinder date with a Melbourne lawyer, alleged Martin had threatened to stab her in the face with a chopstick. It was an extraordinarily serious accusation.Dustin Martin in 2015.Wayne TaylorThe investigation unfolded well away from AFL House. By then, the Integrity Unit had developed an effective system for conducting sensitive interviews. Rather than summoning players to league headquarters, where TV cameras and photographers routinely camped outside, they used a network of corporate boardrooms throughout Melbourne’s CBD.Each had one crucial feature: underground parking. Players, coaches, club officials and witnesses could drive in unseen, take a lift to the meeting room and leave again without ever appearing in public.The Integrity Unit interviewed witnesses to the Martin incident individually, testing their recollections against each other rather than accepting any single account at face value. Among the most important interviews was with the lawyer who had accompanied the complainant that evening. He was not compelled to talk but was happy to cooperate.According to people with direct knowledge of the investigation, his version of events differed significantly from the allegation that Martin had threatened to assault the woman. Investigators instead pieced together an encounter in which Martin, after the woman tried repeatedly to get his attention, reacted angrily before telling her, in effect, to leave him alone.The inside of Mr Miyagi in Windsor. Dustin Martin was cleared of threatening a woman with chopsticks. Wayne TaylorThe distinction was important, not because it excused Martin’s behaviour. He had been drinking heavily and acknowledged his conduct had fallen below the standard expected of an AFL footballer. He later apologised to both the woman and restaurant’s management.Victoria Police reviewed CCTV footage and interviewed independent witnesses before concluding no criminal offence had occurred. The AFL’s own investigation similarly found there was no evidence to substantiate the central allegation that Martin had threatened the woman with chopsticks.Ordinarily, that might have been the end of the matter.It wasn’t.Despite the most serious allegation not being substantiated, Richmond ultimately imposed a suspended $5000 fine on Martin after stern direction from AFL House. Publicly, the club confirmed the Integrity Unit had found no evidence to support the allegation of a threat.Privately, the episode became an example of the delicate balance the AFL attempts to strike between evidence, accountability and protecting the game’s reputation.How the unit operatesBeing called to an interview with the Integrity Unit can be intimidating.Many investigators are ex-police officers who bring experience with hardened criminals. Sources said the unit has become much better in recent years at considering individual circumstances surrounding the interviewees, but officials still feel the pressure of an interrogation.Legal representation or the presence of a player manager can ease the stress but the ever-present urgency to finalise investigations, particularly when they relate to on-field matters that may lead to a suspension, can cause the process to falter. This can mean the club is notified before the person’s representative or the players’ association knows of an incident.In the Lance Collard case over an alleged homophobic remark during a VFL game, some interviews were recorded, others not, before Collard appeared at AFL House for a face-to-face interview. Because Collard refuted the allegation and did not budge, the matter was decided at an independent tribunal hearing and appeal.Investigators have the power to compel registered officials to follow league rules and can demand phones, computers and other material be handed over. In most instances, people within the game comply willingly.They prepare a brief of evidence for the AFL’s legal counsel, Stephen Meade but the unit, led by Keane, reports to chief operating officer Tom Harley after a restructure of the executive and changed reporting lines last year.The AFL Integrity and Security Unit operates in a strictly confidential sphere. Aresna VillanuevaIt’s sometimes a thankless task with sporting investigators generally less enamoured with establishing facts about on-field issues such as vilification or morally dubious but not illegal activities than they are about issues that go to the heart of the game’s integrity. But they do what they are directed to do.The unit also steps back if a criminal investigation is launched to avoid any potential of getting in the way of police but remain closely connected to state and federal authorities, particularly when it comes to identifying threats to integrity or security threats.It was an off-duty cop who recognised that a man being interviewed post-game in the Essendon rooms on a Channel 7 Roaming Brian segment in 2024 had a criminal background and no place being so close to players and officials. Police also lent support after a threat was made to a senior official at a club in the past few years, stationing a car in the person’s street until the threat receded.The integrity unit can ask to speak to parties outside the game, but the targets are not required to speak. Who is spoken to and what documents or data are relied upon to prepare briefs often remains a closely guarded secret.However, Cate Sayers’ legal action has provided a window into the unit’s operations.The Sayers scandalCate Sayers has not only taken aim at her ex-husband for implying she posted the now-infamous photo of his penis, but claims in court filings that the AFL investigation was inadequate. She also alleged that the AFL worked closely with Sayers and Carlton to exonerate him.The AFL remains adamant their only obligation was to investigate whether a registered official broke the rules or the code of conduct by putting a photo of a penis online, in the same way it has investigated when footage of a player taking drugs has found its way into the public domain. Luke and Cate Sayers at the 2023 Brownlow Medal night, before their split.WireImageSo once it determined Luke Sayers had not posted the lewd image, it did not feel compelled to determine who had.The AFL believed that once the investigation was closed the matter was finished.They were wrong as the provision of a statutory declaration to the AFL by Sayers to support his (unflattering) position has landed in court.Cate Sayers alleges she was defamed by Luke in that the stat dec implied she suffered from mental illness, that she periodically refuses to take prescribed medication, and that her denials about posting the explicit photo could not be trusted. “The information was used to present her as unstable, untrustworthy, erratic, mentally disturbed and/or presenting as a live risk to her own safety,” her statement of claim alleged.Cate Sayers is not bound by AFL rules and was not interviewed by the integrity unit.However, the case has raised questions about how rigorously Luke’s account of events was tested.It has also elevated concerns about the extent the AFL will go to - whether real or perceived - to protect senior club officials’ reputations.The AFL declined to answer specific questions from this masthead about the Sayers investigation.Conduct unbecomingMost within the game accept and support the Integrity Unit’s investigations, especially where security is concerned, but AFL rule 2.3A, which prohibits conduct “unbecoming or likely to prejudice the interests or reputation of the AFL”, that raises hackles.It does, according to three sources, give the AFL the opportunity to investigate what it wants and make judgments behind closed doors on any behaviour it believes might harm their image.The biggest knock on the AFL according to one competition source is that they are “judge, jury and executioner” when determining integrity matters, with their penalties often delivered at the end of a negotiation, as happened with Izak Rankine’s homophobic slur on the eve of last year’s finals.A recommendation of a five-match ban was reduced to four matches after Adelaide argued the toss and presented compelling medical evidence to convince the AFL to downgrade the penalty.The NRL, which established an integrity unit in 2013, made a change in February 2026 introducing an independent decision maker (Supreme Court judge Geoffrey Bellew SC) to determine punishments for off-field breaches in all cases except vilification and doping/drug-testing breaches.What changes are needed?One longstanding official in the game put it simply when asked what improvements could be made to the unit.“They need clearer guidelines which detail their remit on what they investigate and why,” he said.The AFL argues the guidelines are clear, but the senior official wasn’t alone in his concern. One source said the Sayers case also highlighted the potential need for a check and balance in the process, to ask not whether they can investigate a particular matter but whether they should.League sources say the volume of investigations and the speed required makes that step impractical, and argue that the unit regularly reports to the AFL Commission and a sub-committee.Outsiders are less certain of that argument. “That’s rubbish,” said one source with experience in integrity issues who wished to remain anonymous. “A committee could make decisions as quickly as the AFL on important matters.”The AFL remains separate from, but inextricably linked to, the National Sports Integrity Framework after the 2018 Wood Review into Australia’s Sports Integrity Arrangements presented 52 recommendations which led to Sports Integrity Australia and a National Sports Tribunal.Along with other major professional sports such as rugby league and cricket, the AFL is not a signatory to the National Sports Integrity Framework, which mainly covers government-funded sporting associations.Instead, the AFL roughly measures up to the standards set in the framework but remains separate so they can, as one senior sports official puts it, retain control over their processes and penalties.“They walk the fine line between keeping governments happy and retaining control,” a senior official said. “They don’t want to end up in front of the national sporting tribunal”.There are also integrity bodies in sport which are kept separate from the commercial side of the business to ensure both parties can get on with their business without the temptation to interfere.Those structures require a governing body to give up the power to influence outcomes.Senior officials within the game say a more immediate concern for the league is the demands the oversight of community football have created, with an argument being made that their role should start and end with the matters pertaining to the AFL, AFLW and state league competitions.AFL Statement to The Age:“The AFL’s Security and Integrity Department exists to protect people, competitions and the game.Its responsibilities extend beyond relevant investigations and include player and official conduct, anti-doping, wagering integrity, safeguarding, respect and responsibility, registration policies, major event security, risk and emergency management and intelligence functions across all levels of Australian football.The department’s role reflects the scale and reach of the game. Last year, more than eight million fans attended AFL and AFLW matches, while the AFL supported the delivery of more than 950 football matches, including major national events and operations across community football, state leagues, and the elite competitions.Each year the department assesses more than 1,500 intelligence reports, with the overwhelming majority from community football, and manages hundreds of matters affecting the safety, security and integrity of the game, working closely with clubs, leagues, government agencies, law enforcement and other stakeholders.Matters are assessed and managed in accordance with AFL rules, regulations, and policies, with regular reporting and oversight provided through the AFL’s governance framework. Any criminal matters are managed by the relevant state or territory police agency (LEA).The scale and complexity of the department’s responsibilities have grown significantly over time, especially at a community level, and we continue to look our operating model to ensure it is best placed to protect people, competitions and the game.”Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter.From our partners