THERE is no polite way of saying this. The Collingwood Football Club should be ashamed of itself. It has made a shocking error of judgement in putting the result of a football match ahead of its social responsibility.

And in sanctioning the Magpies' decision to allow Alan Didak to go unpunished for his behaviour, the AFL is equally culpable. Perhaps even more so, given that it should have shown leadership without the obvious downside of a place in the top four to consider.

Collingwood's new chief executive Gary Pert, in a decision approved by club president Eddie McGuire and Pert's No. 2 Eugene Arocca, put on a straight face yesterday when he said Didak would not be punished by the club because he had not broken any team rules.

Presumably that is because there is no rule at the Magpies that states that you cannot drink heavily at strip clubs during the season, pick up with a Hell's Angel for several hours, witness at close hand two shooting incidents — one with police in the vicinity — and then fail to report either to the police, your football club or even your lawyer.

"I am only now fully aware of the situation I found myself in," said Didak when he faced the media briefly on Thursday night. Presumably the awareness set in when he was called off the training track that day at 3pm and told his little secret was out and he would have to face the music.

Pert said Didak was a victim and that the club would answer nothing about the incidents he saw for legal reasons. That is a great excuse — "legal reasons" — and one that raised eyebrows among some police who have been involved in the dreadful saga involving the recent shootings, given the clarity of some of Didak's witness statements.

It is not known whether Didak's inability to help police with details of at least one of the shootings was because of trauma or alcohol-fuelled amnesia.

AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said yesterday Didak had been stupid. Collingwood repeatedly said he had been drinking heavily. Apparently, being a drunken moron removes any community responsibility.

You have to feel sorry for Didak. Some commentators suggested yesterday that had he acted responsibly, shooting victim Brendan Keilar might not have been killed, which is too long a bow to draw.

But that does not excuse Collingwood from trying to inflict a serious punishment in a bid to teach the footballer some responsibility.

Perhaps the club feared the serious questions a two-game suspension, for example, would unleash. Sometimes, it's easier to pull down the shutters and hope it will all go away in the manner Didak clearly did when his adventurous night out with the Hell's Angels went pear-shaped.

Pert said the media — which he knew only too well — had a tendency to exaggerate the importance of these events. Tell that to the grieving family and friends of Brendan Keilar, a man who loved football.

What Pert should have said was that some commentators had shown a dreadful lack of judgement in underplaying and even giggling about aspects of the story and cracking strip-club jokes. These jokes were in particularly poor taste, given the alleged treatment handed out at the said strip clubs towards two women by Hudson days after his night out with Didak.

This behaviour was demonstrated on Channel Nine on Thursday night and on radio SEN yesterday where, at one point, Hudson was referred to as "Huddo" and someone asked jokingly whether perhaps he was related to commentator Anthony Hudson. Hysterical.

In letting Didak off the hook, Collingwood has said he has been placed on notice and that the club will rewrite its code of conduct. The AFL decided to do the same at a commission meeting in Brisbane back in May, the same meeting where it chose to let West Coast off the hook.

The AFL has stepped in because it says it cannot trust the clubs to sanction talented players. It could have intervened yesterday but it didn't, just as both the competition and West Coast have suddenly changed their tunes about Ben Cousins now that the Eagles are losing and Chris Judd has a groin injury.

Geelong and Fremantle have been two exceptions to that rule this season but the Magpies seem to prefer now to put off their punishments until trade week, as they did with Chris Tarrant.

You would think Collingwood, of all clubs, would never underplay any incident involving cars and drinking binges. The Magpies suggested it was tough to find a taxi on King Street at 3 or 4am. Please!

The Magpies did suspend three players earlier this season — less important players than Didak, it must be said — for breaking a curfew laid down by coach Mick Malthouse in Adelaide.

Because Didak was not told after the Magpies' Queen's Birthday loss to Melbourne to refrain from keeping silent over alleged shooting sprees, he did nothing wrong.

At yesterday's news conference, Malthouse was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps that was his chair that was removed just before the public announcement took place.

Malthouse famously has a social conscience but first and foremost, he is already without his star forward and has a big game of football to win. As Malthouse said after the Adelaide incident when comparisons were drawn with Tarrant, consistency is overrated.

Demetriou reportedly congratulated Pert on Collingwood's handling of the Didak affair. Consistency is certainly overrated where the AFL's handling of Cousins has been concerned. The manner in which the AFL has stamped its authority on Cousins to date is to leak details of his tougher contract conditions to the media, only to have West Coast soften those conditions.

McGuire said early in his presidency that a premiership would be only a small part of his proposed legacy. McGuire emphasised philanthropy and community leadership as the priorities for his new Magpies. He should have stuck with premierships.

West Coast has shown you don't have to be a community leader to win those.