‘Absolute disgrace’: Sam Newman slams Eddie McGuire’s Collingwood exit

Controversial media personality Sam Newman has branded the treatment of Eddie McGuire an “absolute disgrace” after the Collingwood president’s resignation on Tuesday afternoon.

McGuire faced heated backlash following his response to a damning report that accused Collingwood of fostering “systemic racism”, which ultimately forced him to step down now rather than at the end of the season, as planned.

The 56-year-old fought back tears as he fronted a press conference to announce his resignation.

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“I tried my best and I don’t always get it right, but I don’t stop trying,” McGuire said. “Today, effective immediately, I step down from the presidency of the Collingwood Football Club.

“From the moment I became the president of the Collingwood Football Club on my 34th birthday back in 1998, my sole motivation was to heal, unite, inspire and drive a new social conscience, not just into this club, but sport and the community in general and build an organisation that would be a place for opportunity for all people.”

Collingwood President Eddie McGuire leaves Collingwood. Picture: Alex Coppel.Source:News Corp Australia

Newman was a longtime panellist on The AFL Footy Show alongside McGuire and the former Geelong ruckman delivered a scathing response to his comrade’s departure.

“It is an absolute disgrace what is happening to Eddie McGuire,” Newman told FIVEaa Adelaide on Tuesday.

“Eddie McGuire is a great person, a great member of our community here in Melbourne, and in fact, he’s a great Australian.

“He might have erred like everyone might have erred, but he’s tried his heart out to rectify what has gone on at that club.

“It is completely unfair what they’re doing to him, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

“Why would you single him out? He has tried his hardest. He has set up Indigenous foundations at that club.

“This has nothing to do with racism … he is being condemned absolutely unfairly by all and sundry, because they think it’s a great, politically-correct, point-scoring opportunity.

“They’re invested in chaos and division.”

Former Geelong footballer and identity Sam Newman.Source:AAP

McGuire and veteran AFL reporter Caroline Wilson have endured a love-hate relationship over the years, but the journalist believed the Collingwood boss’ “hubris” contributed to his downfall.

“There were so many things over the past week or so that just went from bad to worse for him,” Wilson told 3AW on Tuesday.

“Even today, unfortunately, there were just a few signs of the hubris that brought him down in the end.

“Everything we say is underlined by the fact we know that he did so much good and that the club, in many ways, is in such a better position … than when Eddie found it.

“He came to Collingwood so determined to unite all the factions and you couldn’t say, last week, that’s what he’d done.

“You’d have to say last week they were a club savagely divided.

“I think that it’s sad that it’s ended like this for him.

“From people I’ve been talking to today, the one thing they were all united on, in the end, was that he had to go and they couldn’t possibly get past this until he did go.”

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