"I understand that a high profile individual may have been found guilty of some rather horrible crimes. I have further been informed that, due to the high profile of the individual involved, there is a suppression order in place meaning that the specific details of the alleged crimes and the name of the individual can not be published. But let's face it, there's about a billion percent chance it's one of our guys."
Todd Greenberg, The Chief Executive Officer of the National Rugby League, has become very accustomed to fronting the media after one of his players has done something horrible. In fact, he has become very good at the solemn, serious speech that is needed in those situations.
However, today he faces his biggest challenge yet. As he sipped on his morning coffee, he read some rather strange reports. Apparently a "very high profile individual" has been found guilty of some very serious crimes. He further read that the details of the specific criminal acts, and the identity of the individual involved, are to be withheld by the media pursuant to a suppression order.
Mr Greenberg said that, while the details have been suppressed, it's clearly "one of our guys".
"Yes I'm not taking any chances. It's almost certainly one of our guys. I don't obviously know which specific dickhead this is, but it's got to be one of us. I'm not even going to Google it to see if anyone has breached the order. I just know it's one of us."
Mr Greenberg said that he has a word document saved on his computer entitled "Regrettable Incident". It's his most frequently opened document. It's basically a speech with a couple of blanks to be filled in, depending on the specific misbehaviour that has been engaged in by his players. It contains all the key words like "contrition", "ongoing investigation", "taking the matter very seriously". All of that sort of stuff.
However, as Todd explains, this is an unusual case.
"Look I really want to get on the front foot with this one. But it's a bit hard when all I know is that an unnamed person has done some bad things. I'm thinking I might bung the words "this particular individual" in there wherever I would normally put the name of the actual player. Otherwise I think I'm ready to roll. Just going to read over it a couple of times and I'm good to go this afternoon.
When we asked him what was happening this afternoon, he informed us that he was being so proactive that he had already called a press conference.
"Got to get on the front foot with these things, you know. Plus one thing I've learned is that you should always come out and address an issue when there is something else big going on, so that some of the attention is diverted away. And I just read on the news.com.au website a report that Cardinal George Pell has been removed from the Vatican's "Group of Nine", being the inner circle of the Vatican. While it's not a moral scandal, surely that's bigger news than whatever this player has done."
Well played, Mr Greenberg. Always a step ahead.