Fevola not punished over Bingle pic - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Fevola not punished over Bingle pic

09/04/2010 07:46:04 PM Comments (0)

Lara Bingle's refusal to talk to investigators over the nude photo taken of her by Brendan Fevola meant the AFL couldn't prove allegations of misconduct against the Brisbane Lions forward.

However, AFL football operations general manager Adrian Anderson, who on Friday was provided with a report into the matter, says the investigation remains open.

The AFL will monitor Bingle's threats of legal action against Fevola, and they are also willing to talk to the former fiancee of Australian cricket vice-captain Michael Clarke, with the swimsuit model so far declining their approaches.

"Certainly one of the things that made it difficult to make any findings in this case was our investigator's inability, because Ms Bingle's advisers refused permission for us to speak with her," Anderson said.

"We would have liked to have spoken with Ms Bingle but she's not obliged to talk with us.

"If she would like to, we will and we'll take it from there."

Anderson said there was "insufficient evidence" to establish any breach of the AFL rules by Fevola.

"Given the evidence currently available to us and the time elapsed since the alleged behaviour, the AFL has not established that a breach of our rules has occurred.

"What we have to do is thoroughly investigate these matters and that's what our investigators have done here and we will continue to monitor the outcome of any legal proceeding to see whether any further action is appropriate."

The investigation was completed by the AFL's manager of integrity services, Brett Clothier and former senior police officer, cultural strategy and education manager Sue Clark, and followed claims the former Carlton player took a nude photograph of Bingle in the shower during their brief secret affair in 2006 and distributed it to other AFL players.

Fevola, who was married at the time, was interviewed twice as part of the investigation while Bingle, through her lawyers, declined to speak but provided a statutory declaration.

Other AFL players were also interviewed. Anderson said Fevola admitted taking the photo, which appeared in Women's Day magazine early last month, however the circumstances under which it was taken were "not clear".

Bingle claimed it was without consent. The AFL star denied he distributed the photo and the investigators didn't find any evidence that proved otherwise.

"There's no evidence to establish distribution of the photograph and the circumstances of the taking of the photo are not clear because we couldn't speak with Ms Bingle," Anderson said.

He warned that although the misconduct allegations were unproven, it didn't mean the AFL was going soft on the issue of women and player respect.

"We take this matter very seriously, we take respect and responsibility toward women extremely seriously and the fact that the evidence doesn't establish a breach in this particular case doesn't or shouldn't distract from the fact that we're very serious about respect from our players and everyone in the AFL toward women," he said.

"Any player or official who takes a photo of a woman in these sorts of circumstances without consent and distributes it, is risking a sanction under the AFL rules."

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