Geelong Cats coach Chris Scott dismisses football department links to Si Giang Nguyen
Geelong says former coterie Sy Giang Nguyen, who is under investigation for allegedly defrauding local non-profit genU, had no role in the football department when Chris Scott was coach of the Cats.
The dual premiership coach has responded to News Corp’s report that Scott and football manager Andrew Mackie stayed in the same hotel as Nguyen when traveling to Sydney early in the 2023 season.
The trip comes months before police said they were investigating the former genU employee for alleged fraud, and also within the timeframe of the AFL’s extended audit of Geelong’s management of player payments and third-party agreements, covering 2019-2024.
The AFL found that no breaches of player payments or player movement rules had occurred; however, the Cats were fined $77,500 ($40,000 suspended) due to administrative errors.
The audit found a number of non-disclosures and/or late disclosures of agreements with club partners and third parties that were required to be reported to the AFL.
“I understand the AFL’s interest in implementing the broader soft cap, particularly the salary cap,” Scott said on Wednesday.
“Our club has gone through a comprehensive audit over the last 12 months and we think we’re through that now. We fully support that the AFL has a role to play in this and we feel really comfortable with them taking on that role and secondly, we’re on board with any questions they may have, but I suspect some sort of public comment on that is likely to lead to insinuations, half-truths and conjectures.”
Scott said he knew Nguyen but “was not involved in any way with the trip Andrew and I took” and did not socialize with them during the trip.
“It wouldn’t surprise you or anyone else to know that I’m not particularly involved in booking business travel,” Scott said.
Geelong confirmed the club is covering Scott and Mackie’s travel and accommodation costs to Sydney.
The Cats coach said the Geelong football department remained separate from the commercial department, which deals with corporate sponsors and coterie members.
“If the expectation is for clubs to scrutinize people for things that might happen in the future, that would be a very high bar and we could also find ourselves without institutional support,” Scott said.
No charges have been laid against Nguyen but investigations are ongoing and the club has had no connection with Nguyen since the allegations of fraud were made known.
Nguyen and Geelong businessman Keith Greenwood agreed to pay $5.4 million to the charity in a civil lawsuit as genU sought to recover some of the missing $14.5 million. This imprint reported in December that the couple had made no further payments after making the first payment of $1.4 million.
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