THE AFL is investigating whether Sydney has turned its pre-season competition into a farce, and yet it is the AFL that has created the farce.

Because how on earth could Paul Roos and his club be punished for losing a game that means nothing to Sydney's fans, when Carlton deliberately lost games of football and destroyed for many fans the integrity of the last two months of the home-and-away season?

The Blues not only were rewarded for tanking by gaining the best tall young footballer to emerge in the national draft for several years, but untried coach Brett Ratten won a coaching contract on the back of six successive losses. This is the same Carlton that lost draft picks for cheating several years earlier. Talk about a farce.

But now we have an investigation that threatens to cast a shadow over the NAB Cup grand final — which in the minds of St Kilda and Adelaide fans, the coffers of the two clubs, not to mention potential television ratings — does actually mean something. Nor will the players involved be averse to some pre-season silverware.

In short, this could have been solved by a telephone call.

Instead, both the AFL and Sydney have enlisted Queen's counsels to get to the bottom of what clearly was an off-the-cuff gag by Paul Roos, who — incidentally — is looking at spending each game of the 2008 season coaching from the boundary line to keep in closer contact with his players and therefore should think before he demonstrates any more of that dry humour in future.

Four witnesses — not an interchange steward but various AFL and umpiring officials — have said they heard Roos call for Jarrad McVeigh to take the field, go forward but not to kick a goal. McVeigh insists he never heard the final instruction and Roos says he can't remember what he said.

Given that he probably did say it — whether or not in jest and who truly cares — a telephone call surely would have minimised the damage, not to mention the cost, to both parties and their already fractured relationship.

No one is suggesting the AFL treat the Swans with kid gloves because they play in a developing market, but this is true overkill.

The Swans have engaged Terry Forrest to represent them in this saga, the same QC who argued successfully for Barry Hall to take part in the 2005 grand final. Roos and his legal man will front John Winneke in Melbourne this week.

Hopefully, should Roos and Andrew Demetriou cross paths, their conversation will prove more successful than the last time they tried to patch things up following the latter's public criticism of the former's football team.

Because there is no doubt Roos and Demetriou remain an accident waiting to happen, despite Demetriou's insistence he has no vendetta against the coach or his club. Roos' resentment at Demetriou for his public slagging of the Swans' "ugly" brand of football back in 2005, their premiership year, is deep-seated.

The Swans insist it is a coincidence that they have scheduled their annual meeting next Thursday, a date that coincides with the official launch of the AFL season, a gala affair celebrating the game's 150th anniversary, which will not be attended by Roos or his chairman Richard Colless, who — in fairness — will be overseas on a business trip.

And the Sydney coach can afford to grind his axe against the AFL.

Not only is he one of the safest men in football — a premiership coach who already has anointed his successor and given the strong impression his life would be equally fulfilled once his coaching days are over.

Just as he can afford to continue to lose pre-season games.

The Swans make their money elsewhere and know as their coach does they will never be cut adrift.

Ironically, it probably now will be Demetriou who will decide whether to punish the coach for what appears to be — at worst — an ill-timed joke. Because Adrian Anderson, who laid the charge, is overseas on a study tour.