Sydney captain Callum Mills says the five players stood down for the rest of the season for breaching behavioural standards have \u201clet the club down\u201d and that he fully supports the sanctions handed down by the Swans.<\/p>\n
Mills said he had spoken to the players involved and that those conversations were \u201cextremely hard\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Swans captain and senior coach Dean Cox fronted the media on Friday in their first official press conference since the AFL was rocked by reports of a sexual assault incident at the team\u2019s Melbourne hotel in the early hours of Monday morning.<\/p>\n
Independent of the ongoing police investigation into those allegations, vice-captain Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, James Jordon and Riley Bice were suspended for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n
This masthead is not suggesting the players are guilty of any wrongdoing, just that they are assisting police with inquiries.<\/p>\n
Mills said he was extremely disappointed in the actions of the five players, who he referenced as \u201ca few\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that the five players have let us down and we believe we\u2019ll be doing everything we possibly can to regain the trust of the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fully support the sanctions handed down. This has caused us to put the mirror up to all men in society and inside the football club.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t about football. My position is that I fully support the sanctions handed down by the club.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked directly if he had spoken to the five players, Mills answered: \u201cYes, I have.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked how that conversation was, he added: \u201cExtremely hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mills denied there was a rift amongst the playing group and also apologised to the Swans AFLW team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not a rift within the group; the wellbeing of everyone involved is the most important,\u201d he said<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s going to be feeling different things; football is secondary at the moment, but we will stick together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI addressed the AFLW players, and I acknowledged their pain, and I apologised for the actions of a few within our group.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cox said he hasn\u2019t even been thinking about the Swans\u2019 final round clash against North Melbourne on Sunday but that club remains united.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t looked at football this week. It\u2019s about trying to work through this process as quickly as we can, and I hope our fans can stand by us. Our club is united, and our football club is united,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of work to do. The stance we made against these actions is really firm, and we have to forge forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t look any further than Sunday. We first have to get our head into North Melbourne and the historic moment that represents.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"SYDNEY,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/6505d8e6f0df7f6f7905ee30b6eae1676555fd40.jpg\")
Camera IconSYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – AUGUST 21: Dean Cox, coach of the Sydney Swans and Callum Mills speak to the media during a Sydney Swans AFL press conference at Sydney Swans HQ on August 21, 2026 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Darrian Traynor\/Getty Images) Credit: Darrian Traynor\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Cox said he had spoken to the five players involved but said their focus right now was on rebuilding the culture within the football club.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is unanimous the support for the sanctions. I\u2019ve spoken to the players about their welfare, but as you can imagine, everyone at the football club has had different emotions and they\u2019ve gone through all of them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a really hard week for everyone involved in the football club.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been at the football club for nine years and everyone inside those four walls we value highly, and we back ourselves in to repay the faith.<\/p>\n
Cox also read out a statement saying respect for women remains the highest priority for the club.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all have women in our lives we deeply love and respect for women is our highest priority both personally and for our football club,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI apologise to club staff and women in the community for the actions of our players. I hope everyone is getting the support they need.<\/p>\n
\u201cCulture isn\u2019t perfect, and we know our culture has taken a hit, we are going to work through and as hard as we possibly can to re-earn that trust and get it back to where it needs to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sydney captain Callum Mills says the five players stood down for the rest of the season for breaching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[77,261,247,5009],"class_list":["post-77205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sydney","tag-afl","tag-sport","tag-sydney","tag-sydney-swans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}