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The Fevola Effect

By Mr Dandalooa

It’s The Fevola Effect.

The forced departure of full-forward and former Footy Show host Brendan Fevola following last September’s Brownlow Medal fiasco has forced the club to take a strong stand.

Big Bad Fev’s departure meant the Blues had to recast their forward lines, and make a host of other internal changes.

Most notably, is its new hardline approach to players who step out of line.

Carlton Football Club’s chief executive says there will be “dire consequences” if any player breaks the club’s code of conduct that could jeopardise, amongst other things, a new multi-million dollar sponsorship deal.

CEO Greg Swann says the behaviour of the Blues squad was a major consideration in sponsorship negotiations with confectionary giant Mars, and behaviour clauses have been drafted into the contract.

The drastic move came after the fallout from The Fevola Effect at the Brownlow Medal night and after the club suffered further embarrassing PR blows is a horrid week dealing with poor player behaviour before Christmas last year.

But the club’s preseason had not suffered in the wake of the notorious pre-Christmas booze cruise, one player noted.

Andrew Walker, Eddie Betts and Ryan Houlihan received club suspensions for their drunken misbehaviour following the player function.

Encompassing tall Blues utility Jarrad Waite said hopefully “we know the rules now and if any of our boys play up, it’s pretty-much you’re out the door, basically,” he said.

“It’s a good thing to have and it’s definitely not going to happen again.”

But despite the continued indiscretions, Swann says he’s “very confident” the club’s hierarchy has steps in place where those issues would not happen again.

“And if they do - well you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out it’ll be a pretty serious matter,” he told the ABC.

Fevola was the Carlton’s top goal-kicker for the past seven seasons, leaving big shoes to fill.

Waite says the Blues still have not got anyone to fill those boots, but said the club had a “potent forward line” with Brad Fisher, Matthew Kreuzer and Simon Wiggins set to pick up the slack.

While the loss of Fev from The Fevola Effect means a loss of a bevy of goals, the club maintains that it doesn’t want someone who is going to kick 80-plus goals, but instead they want four or five in the forward line who can kick 30 each.

It seems in is absence, Fevola still makes an impact on the Blues from his years of misbehaviour and bad boy antics, in The Fevola Effect.