AAP, May 6: The investigator whose report cost Ricky Nixon his job blames the disgraced AFL player manager or his associates for leaking it.
David Galbally QC's report for the AFL Players' Association (AFLPA) was given to Melbourne radio station 3AW, which aired it on Thursday.
Galbally said he felt terrible for St Kilda players Nick Riewoldt, Sam Gilbert and Nick Dal Santo, whose statements about Nixon - given in confidence - became public.
"They've got to concentrate on a football season. The last thing in the world they would have wanted to be involved in was yet another investigation into these matters," Galbally told MTR radio on Friday.
"But they cooperated and did it on the basis that these things would be treated confidentially. I feel very sorry for them."
Galbally said he had made just two copies, one for himself and another for the AFLPA, which he understood provided a copy for Nixon.
He said he had no doubt the leak did not come from the AFLPA or his own office, leading him to blame Nixon.
"It's come from somewhere from that party, from that angle," Galbally said.
"... Maybe it's come as a consequence of him showing other people, I don't know."
The report was unfavourable to Nixon, finding he had sex with teenage girl Kim Duthie and took illicit drugs with her in a Melbourne hotel room.
Duthie was at the centre of the St Kilda nude photo scandal.
Nixon continues to vehemently deny having sex with Duthie, only admitting to an "inappropriate relationship".
The findings resulted in Nixon being stripped of his AFL agent's accreditation for at least two years.
Galbally suggested Nixon might have released the report to try to discredit the QC or the AFLPA.
"That may well be right and it may well be to try to cause some more disharmony at St Kilda and try to unnerve the players by reporting what they had said to me," he said.
AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said he had not read the report and did not plan to.
"I've sort of chosen not to read it because I actually do take it very seriously, that what was in that report was confidential," Demetriou told 3AW.
"The people who were interviewed, as I understand it, were of the view that everything they spoke about was going to be confidential.
"I suspect some of them are feeling very aggrieved this morning.
"I will continue not to read it because I think it's inappropriate."