FORMER Adelaide player Stephen Rowe says the club’s hierarchy betrayed its playing group this year.

The Crows’ now-infamous pre-season training camp cast a shadow over their 2018 season, with Adelaide going on to miss the finals — followed by in-contract key tall Mitch McGovern requesting a trade.

Since then, the group involved in the camp — Collective Mind — has released multiple statements downplaying the camp’s role in Adelaide’s issues this year.

In a passionate monologue on Footy SA, Rowe said senior coach Don Pyke, football manager Brett Burton and chief executive Andrew Fagan had failed to manage the situation properly.

The ex-Crow said the Adelaide hierarchy’s approach had been “heartless at worst and … unprofessional at best,” saying an apology wasn’t enough.

“I’ve said from day one, the emotional interrogation, for me, was the ultimate betrayal to that playing group,” Rowe said on Footy SA.
“What was said to certain players, without a shadow of a doubt, is inexcusable.

“So the bigger crime, for me, is the management of this issue from that day to where we sit here of Pyke, Fagan and Burton. It was heartless at worst and I think it was unprofessional at best.

“The disrespect, I think, shown to key support staff, to players, to players’ partners, is their biggest failing and here’s the problem. Sorry’s not enough. Sorry is not enough to that group.

“For me, it’s Fagan and Burton, their apology, from where I sit and the people I’ve spoken to, wasn’t enough and there was no sincerity in it.”

Rowe said the players now had the “overwhelming emotion” that the club cared more about its brand and position than its playing group.

“So players leave on holidays knowing there is a massive problem and for that, here’s the other thing I’ll say, the overwhelming emotion from the players is the club is more interested — the club, you know who the club represents — is more interested in their brand and their position, not the players,” Rowe said.

“What I am willing to say is Andrew Fagan’s in charge of all of that and I think while he is there — the sorry part of it, the forgiving part of it, the managed part of it — from here moving forward, I think from what I’ve heard, is problematic and problematic for me means change or leave.”