Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has defended his alleged hypocrisy after slamming players who breached the AFL’s COVID-19 protocols before applauding Magpies’ Steele Sidebottom for his accountability after an alcohol-fuelled breach last Sunday.

McGuire’s conflicting roles with the media and at the Pies have again come into question in 2020 after suggesting, prior to the Sidebottom saga, that players should be given a $100,000 fine and a suspension for any breach.

The Collingwood veteran eventually accepted his four-week ban but when former All Australian Luke Darcy grilled McGuire on their breakfast radio program this morning, Eddie refused to back down and again went into bat for Sidebottom.

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“I stand by that, that’s why we accept and there was no appeal last week. I don’t understand the situation, I’ve been hard on penalties yeah and we got a hard penalty last week and we accepted it. I would’ve thought it’s pretty simple,” McGuire said.

“For the record again, I did call for heavy sanctions, the AFL decided not to in those situations... that’s alright, it’s not a criticism they decided to go down that way, when we accepted the heaviest of sanctions so far and we made the point, accepted the penalty without appeal and moved on.”

“And then these things inevitably happen Ed at various stages and I suppose what people have taken umbrage with you over the weekend is that they think you have a different set of language around a Collingwood player than you do around other players in the competition, rightly or wrongly,” Darcy followed up.

“That’s OK and I totally disagree with that and I think that’s not the situation,” McGuire replied.

The pair had a heated exchange where Darcy questioned the contrast in the Pies president’s language when discussing breaches from non-Collingwood players compared with his own.

Sidebottom had been visiting teammate Jeremy Howe after the defender sustained a potentially season-ending injury.

“Darce, again and this is not a criticism of you, you’re missing the point. This time last week they were going to close the borders and not let clubs in because the premiers of various states thought the AFL had gone easy,” McGuire said.

“When I first said that on April 29, we were highly aware of the situations that were going to bring the whole season undone. So there we were.”

“And at the same time we understand the nuances of when a player has a great friend who’s injured, you want to support him, you want to go to his house,” Darcy replied

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” McGuire said.”