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Forgive us for stating the bleeding obvious, but the Melbourne Football Club is in more trouble than the early settlers, to whom some of its supporters can probably trace their ancestry.


In the past six seasons, Melbourne has won 32 games. In the Fitzroy Football Club's final six seasons, before it merged with Brisbane, it won 31. Since 2007, Melbourne has had the benefit of a smorgasbord of top draft picks and a wealthy supporter base of which Fitzroy could only have dreamt; yet on and off the field it has fared little better.



In 1993, Fitzroy won as many games as it lost, and lost several games by less than a kick. Three years later, Fitzroy was gone.



It has been six years since Melbourne won as many games as it lost. Even with the cyclical nature of today's game, that is too long.



In the past four years, Melbourne's off-field position has been propped up by a combination of the AFL, the MCC and a Debt Demolition campaign that will surely never be repeated. The place doesn't exactly reek of economic sustainability. A significant portion of their recent financial and moral gains was then lost in the wake of last month's $500,000 fine in relation to &amp;lsquo;tanking', whatever that means, and the associated stigma.



Then came Round 1, 2013.



They're not the first team to be booed off the ground by their own supporters. But they might be the first team to be booed off by their supporters in the first game of the season. The frustration of the Melbourne fans may have erupted during Round 1, but it has been building for the better part of six years.



Melbourne of course currently has more members and supporters than Fitzroy ever did. Members equals money and money generally means survival.



But those inclined to argue that Melbourne's powerful supporter base would never allow the club to merge or fold need only look to the failed merger with Hawthorn in 1996. Only one team voted to merge. That team wasn't Hawthorn.



You can only push your supporters' devotion so far.



In the past six years, Melbourne has tried almost every trick in the book. It has sacked coaches; cleaned out underperforming players; and its &amp;lsquo;employees' have &amp;lsquo;acted in a manner prejudicial to the best interests of the game' in order to draft the best talent in the country. The fruits of those tactics were laid bare on Sunday afternoon.



Unsavoury though the images were of invective hurled from behind the fence and above the race, you can't blame Melbourne supporters for their frustration when every turn seemingly leads to a brick wall.



Something is rotten at the Melbourne Football Club. It surely can't be the coach's fault again; nor can it be the players' fault alone given the talented individuals that punctuate the best 22.



So, if not them, then who?



Little over a month ago, the Melbourne Football Club was formally found not guilty of tanking because there was no directive to lose matches from the highest levels of the club hierarchy. Implicit in that finding was the acknowledgment that it is the CEO and the Board who are in charge of and responsible for a football club, not the coaches or players; that the buck stops up there, not in the rooms.



If that was true then, why is it not true now?



Why is the football department uncoupled from the football club at large when they've bent the rules, but the sole repository of the club's decision-making powers when a scapegoat is required?



The guillotine is once again being sharpened in the dressing rooms. But it surely belongs in the boardroom. The CEO and the Board cannot have their cake and eat it too.



They are either responsible for and in charge of the club, or they are not. If they are responsible, the heads of those who have been at the wheel during this train wreck should be rolling. If they are not responsible, heads should be rolling so someone more accountable can take the reins.



In the meantime, it's their members who are left to eat cake.



And so to another week of sport&amp;hellip;.

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