Well I thought the question was answered. 

At the 2025 Cheer Squad AGM last month there were some lively exchanges by some of the members there on what were some current topics. I’m not sure that much was resolved. Going back to one of my grievances that occurred in a March committee meeting which I have previously written about, I asked the President the following question: 

How did you find out that I was an Essendon FC member? 

The President replied that the information came from the AFL. I then asked were they aware that this confidential information was going to be used by you at a committee meeting. The President answered yes. OK now I wasn’t expecting either of those answers. I thought about this the next day and still not happy with my information being accessed by someone apparently from the AFL. So I decided to lodge a complaint on the official AFL complaints line stating what had been said by the President at the meeting the night before in front of everyone, including a representative of the RFC who witnessed the exchange, and asked how this could have happened and who has access to the AFL membership database. It took about 3 weeks for the integrity office to come back to me as there were people on leave that needed to be spoken to. Tony from the integrity office assured me that there are only a few people at the AFL who have access to these records and that they take privacy issues very seriously. I asked if accredited access holders (of which there are 3 in the cheer squad) could? Answer – no. He said that the AFL cheer squad liaison team doesn’t have access nor does a club have access to another clubs membership details.

So we are now back to where we started. The answer given at the AGM was clearly misleading or deceptive. Greg from the AFL integrity group said in his summary that he was confident this hadn’t come from them and I needed to pursue this through the Richmond FC. I thanked for his time. 

I then emailed Dino at RFC who is in charge of all the supporters groups and who was present at the AGM last month, and who would have witnessed the answer the President gave. I set out the background story of what was troubling me with this and told him what the AFL had advised and asked if he could investigate what went on here. His answer will determine whether I then go to the RFC AGM in January 2026 to raise this matter as well as several other Cheer Squad related issues.

Now just to repeat what I had said in previous comments. If I had been asked about this membership issue I would have given a yes answer. To be clear, this was not in breach of any cheer squad rules. The issue I have is that somehow very accurate information was gained and used prior to the March committee meeting in an attempt to smear and discredit me. 

Given that the President has told the committee and the membership at the AGM that the information was provided by the AFL and that the AFL have investigated the allegations and determined that the information did not come from them, I call on the President to step down from the committee pending an internal Cheer Squad investigation into whether:

  1. The President mislead the committee and the membership at the AGM when she said that the information had been provided to her by the AFL
  2. The President sought to access and subsequently gained access to a committee members personal information, and
  3. Used that information as a means to discredit another committee member.

Ken W