IN ALL the unprecedented turmoil of the last 24 hours, there has been one positive note for followers of the AFL game - we've seen the CEO, Andrew Demetriou, in an unusual guise; not as business man, not as manager of KPIs, not a peddler of spin, but as a deep-rooted fan of footy. One of us.

I saw it first at the press conference at AFL House on Thursday, when he stood, Easter Island-like, bewildered by the response of the AFL Players' Association to the AFL's $1.144 billion offer to the players, an offer spread through the next five years of the broadcast rights; an offer that guarantees the lowest paid player an average salary of $1.4 million over five years.

Demetriou was not just expressing bewilderment at a negotiation going wrong - this was a man who could see the consequences of the AFLPA denial spreading like a cancer through the community.

I heard the CEO as a fan again on Friday morning, in a lively discussion on 3AW, when he expressed his inner concerns that the events of this week may have attacked the fabric of the game - a fabric that does not belong to the players, but the fans.

He said things like:

"… people are entitled to ask questions about issues of commitment, integrity. It's been a very strange 24 hours."

And:

"If you're asking me whether acting honorably with integrity and honesty at all times in any walk of life is the right thing, then my answer is always yes."

And:

"In general, it is reasonable for people to ask if coaches are asking players to commit and play a certain way and to sign up to certain values and morays about how a club should function and run and play, you can understand, [and I'm using a generalisation here and I'm not talking about anyone in specific] that if all of us don't behave in the way we're asking people to behave, then it sort of reeks of hypocrisy and people see through that."

And finally, on the question of the large amount of money flowing through the game and to players:

"… sometimes it can be out of kilter and sometimes it can be offensive."

Like Demetriou, I am a lifelong fan of football, a follower of a club, a lover of the game. At the end of the events of Thursday night, I felt as flat as I have in almost 60 years of footy following.

Thursday's events are well reported, well discussed, but for me, this was just another sad day in a lot of sad moments over the last 18 months.

It started with the sacking of Matthew Knights from Essendon, and the appointment of James Hird - after many weeks in which Hird denied he was a candidate for the job.

I could live with that - just, as circumstances do change—but then came Mark Thompson's decision to leave Geelong, just days after he had bluntly said the players had not conformed to the game plan he wanted from them in that preliminary final thrashing by Collingwood. These are the same players who have formed the Geelong over the past five seasons, one of the greatest teams of the last 50 years. Thompson had his inner reasons, but none of the parties at Windy Hill handled it well.

Self-interest 1, Fans nil

Then came the switches to Gold Coast - players who, in all likelihood, had been signed and sealed for all of the year, telling us that they had just made up their minds, and after tortured nights, they had decided to go east, and north, for the bright lights of Cavill Avenue.

Self-interest 2, Fans nil

Earlier this week, there was another cameo that cut into the heart of the game. We saw Tom Scully in his civvies at Melbourne airport, on the way to western Sydney to check out the facilities at GWS. He had not, he said, made any decision as to his playing future. Ha: 12 hours later, he was a 20-year-old veteran of 31 games part of a deal that has never been surpassed in the game's history.

Self-interest 3, Fans nil

Players come and players go [and so do coaches], but what cannot ever be weakened is the bond that exists between the game and the fans. Fans have a nose for deceit, no matter how much spin or rhetoric and how many smiley faces are applied. The game, and all its component parts, must retain normal human values of trust and respect.

The last 12 months have seen these fundamentals of life stretched.

On Thursday, they were stretched even further. It is safe to say the AFL is astounded, non-plussed, blindsided and all but rendered helpless by the approach of the players to their offer.

There is not one person in the AFL Commission or executive who can see one dollar more available to the players; and this latest ambit claim - to make it a three-year deal, not the full period of the broadcast agreement - is a child-like push for extra lollies, beyond what's in the jar; or more importantly, what's left in the bank of patience of anyone handing out the sweets.

The public has rarely put the AFL brand ahead of the brand of the players - either as a group, or as individuals. In this case (AFL v AFLPA), it's the opposite. In any forum I've been in over the last months, the vote would be ten to one in favour of the AFL. Yesterday's dismissal of the offer may well have made it ten-nil.

Self-interest 4, Fans nil

Fremantle's treatment of Mark Harvey on Thursday was ill-founded, cynical, and beyond all human values. This is a man taken from an all-day list management meeting, and told his time was over, done, out now. There is no excuse for his sort of man management, and I'm relieved to see that the fans on social media this morning are scathing in their criticism of Fremantle.

Self-interest 5, Fans nil

At the same time as this was happening, ESP, representing Ross Lyon, had negotiated a four-year deal that gave Lyon what he wanted - security for himself and his family. This deal was acceptable to ESP and to St Kilda as late as Wednesday, the day Lyon concluded player reviews at Linen House.

It was a done deal - all it needed was Lyon's approval. He asked his management to think about it, to discuss it with his family, to have a bit of time.

Fair enough; but the next discussion between Lyon and ESP senior men, Craig Kelly and Dan Richardson, followed his request for face-to-face meeting, in their offices in Richmond - agenda not revealed; a meeting to be held after he had dropped into the St Kilda office of Saints CEO Michael Nettlefold, for what he said would be a short discussion.

As Lyon drove down the freeway, Nettlefold called Richardson and told him that Lyon had informed him he would not be at St Kilda, effective immediately.

To say Richardson and Kelly were sideswiped is a gross understatement.

Self-interest 6, Fans nil

The eventual meeting with Lyon, at around 6.30pm on Thursday (around the time Fremantle announced Harvey was finished at the club) was a short, amicable discussion between Lyon and the ESP men; Lyon explained that he could not have revealed his discussions with Fremantle because ESP also managed Harvey. The contract between ESP and Lyon was terminated on the spot.

The danger is, that the most important contract of all - between the game and the fans - is as flaky as it's ever been.

For all the discussions between the AFL and the AFLPA, and coaches and clubs, for all the rhetoric, for all the passion that will come over the next three weeks of the season as the premiership is decided, the one discussion that must be held as a matter of urgency is between the AFL - central admin, clubs, coaches and players - and us, seeking a restoration of that awful imbalance between self-interest and the inner-beauty of the game.

Geoff Slattery is the managing editor of AFL Media. Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily the AFL or its clubs.