The man at the centre of the 1997 Sandover Medal betting scandal has stepped down after almost nine years helping run the influential Melbourne Football Club.
The West Australian can reveal that Demons premiership vice-president Steve Morris was fined $5000 for fraud in October 1997 after placing winning bets using leaked information.
Mr Morris, then 34, was charged after WA Police investigators traced bets on surprise Sandover winner Brady Anderson back to the WA Swimming Association, where the Hale School old boy was working as a development manager.
Fremantle Magistrates Court was told that Mr Morris shared a Cottesloe home with a woman working for the WA Football League and she had accidentally told her housemate about the surprise winner’s identity after an internal vote count.
Having been given a spent conviction after his guilty plea, the well-connected Mr Morris eventually moved from swimming administration into the tightly-regulated stockbroking industry in Sydney and then to the Victorian capital.
Mr Morris joined the Melbourne board in November 2014 and helped take the Demons from being an AFL laughing stock to premiers in COVID-stricken 2021, when he became the club’s vice-president.
After queries from The West Australian last week, Melbourne lodged documents with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission showing Mr Morris had stepped down as a director on September 28.
Heading towards their three-term limit, Mr Morris and 2015 board appointee Mohan Jesudason stepped down to make way for president Kate Roffe’s two favoured replacements — investment adviser Sarah Robinson and lawyer Geoff Porz. .
Member Peter Lawrence, head of the Deemocracy group, is expected to stand for a board spot this week as part of a long-running campaign to open Melbourne’s director nomination and election process.
The Sandover Medal betting scandal rocked WA football in September 1997 after big bookmaker Kieran Glynn cried foul over a flurry of bets on outsider Anderson
League boss Grant Dorrington initially denied there had been a leak, but that claim was quickly contradicted by a police investigation and by widespread reporting of the scandal.
Fremantle Magistrates Court was told Mr Morris placed two $200 bets on Anderson at odds of 16/1, but tore up the winning tickets.
He pleaded guilty to fraud but was given a spent conviction so he could travel to international swimming meetings.
It is believed Melbourne members were not told about Mr Morris’s role in the WA scandal, and the club did not answer questions from The West Australian about the level of insider knowledge at the Demons.
The club said in a statement he was required to complete “appropriate probity requirements” at the time.
Mr Morris was “approved by the relevant authorities including the liquor and gaming regulators”, the statement said.
Mr Morris was part of a Melbourne board that oversaw the club’s ownership and eventual sale of two licensed poker machine venues, which are subject to strict Victorian Government reporting requirements.
The Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission requires employees of gaming venues to disclose findings of guilt, including spent convictions.
The VGCCC said Mr Morris’s finding of guilt was disclosed to the authority as part of a successful application in 2015 for him to be approved as an associate of Melbourne Football Club.
In its statement, the club said Mr Morris was an “exceptional board member who was respected by all directors, staff and players”.
Mr Morris was unavailable for comment.