New details have emerged regarding an incident involving five Sydney Swans players and three women at the Pullman East hotel in the early hours of Monday, August 17, an event that occurred just before the AFL finals. The players—Isaac Heeney, Nick Blakey, Chad Warner, James Jordon, and Riley Bice—were stood down by the club for an all-night party involving drinking and bringing women back to the hotel. A separate police investigation is also underway following reports of alleged sexual assaults by three topless waitresses.
A source with knowledge of the events has provided details about the payment agreed upon for the women and a lap dance performance. According to the source, the agent for the adult entertainment company required a deposit and identification from the player who made the booking. Initially, two women were booked, but a third arrived with one of them, making a total of three women present.
The source claims the men did not identify themselves as AFL players but as carpenters. This led to a discounted fee for the lap dance performance, with the women agreeing to charge $200 per girl for the performance across multiple men, a rate typically between $250 and $300, in addition to the agency's booking fee. The women performed one song each while moving between the men. The source stated that some physical contact was permitted during the dances, with one player allegedly paying an extra $50 for permission to slap a dancer's backside multiple times.
The situation reportedly escalated when one of the women began to feel unwell in the hotel room. The source claims she went into the hallway while partially dressed to get fresh air, causing panic among the players as other hotel guests might have been active at that time. The women, still believing they were entertaining tradespeople, were reportedly confused by the players' distress.
According to the source, the two other women decided to end the booking. The situation reportedly became clear to the women when they reached the hotel lobby to seek assistance and saw other team members and management wearing Sydney Swans attire, realizing they had been entertaining AFL players. The Daily Mail previously reported that one of the women contacted her boss to complain about the booking and her treatment.
Following the incident, two of the women filed official police statements and retained legal representation. A third woman also made a police statement later that week. The Sydney Swans confirmed that their internal investigations indicated that only the five stood-down players were present in the hotel room central to the police investigation. No charges have been laid in relation to the incident.