Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley admits it was "crystal clear" the doubles tennis match that cost he and assistant coach Brenton Sanderson $25,000 wasn't allowed under the AFL's COVID-19 rules.
Buckley and Sanderson played tennis with two other people who weren't part of the wider Collingwood group in Perth on Friday, breaching the League's Return To Play protocols.
The club was fined $50,000, with half suspended, and the two coaches had to isolate for 24 hours while awaiting results of COVID-19 tests. Both tested negative.
Buckley and Sanderson volunteered to personally pay the $25,000 fine that wasn't suspended – an offer that the club accepted.
"It can't help. You don't need the extra attention, especially when it's away from your primary endeavour, which is to be as good a football team as you possibly can be," Buckley said of the distraction the situation could have caused.
"We let the club down in that regard by our miscommunication and not being diligent enough in our understanding of what we could and couldn't do."
Buckley thought that the activity had been "ticked off" but he conceded he misinterpreted what was allowed.
"It was crystal clear when you look back at it. There's been four or five different iterations of what is allowed in hubs and even the hotel we're in now is not technically a hub, it's a hotel," Buckley said.
"There has been almost weekly updates or changes to what has occurred and I'm not making an excuse but that is the reality that clubs are facing and there's probably some of the slip-ups have stemmed from that, but I need to be better, we need to be better."
