Mediation has been offered to all parties of the Hawthorn racism investigation in an attempt to end months of delays and stalling.
The Herald Sun reported invitations have been sent out for a session without lawyers present to try and work through the current deadlock.
Then-Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson, footy boss Chris Fagan and player development manager Jason Burt – who were accused of poor treatment of Indigenous players at the club, and have denied all allegations – along with Hawthorn, the AFL’s independent panel members, the Indigenous players and their partners have all received invitations.
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The allegations first surfaced publicly last September yet six months on little progress has been made.
“Some legal representatives from the Indigenous players and their partners are wanting to break this deadlock, mired in litigation at the moment,” Mark Robinson said on Fox Footy’s AFL 360.
“Everyone’s lawyered up. And what started out as a truth-telling exercise has become bogged down.
“The lawyers have wanted and they’ve asked for a mediation session and they’re hoping that Chris Fagan, Alastair Clarkson and Jason Burt, the full panel members, Hawthorn and the Indigenous people together to work out a way through and a way out of this deadlock.”
However Robinson fears the attempted peace talks could easily and quickly stall.
“That sounds fantastic as we sit here and talk about it – yeah, that’s great,” he said.
“But I don’t know if that’s going to happen because Alastair Clarkson might just say no. If he says no, well, this is going to go on for a long, long time.”
However the Herald Sun chief footy writer pointed out AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan, who has extended his stay at the top of the league in part to deal with the Hawthorn scandal, on Wednesday sounded positive about a resolution.
“Gillon McLachlan was really interesting today – he said he expects it to be resolved pretty soon,” Robinson said.
“So maybe he was aware at the weekend just gone invitations had gone out for this mediation session. Probably.
“So we sit here and wait, a lot of people are hoping, so we sit here and wait to see if there’s an outcome.”
