The premiership was won by the Hawthorn Football Club for the eleventh time, after it defeated Fremantle by 15 points in the 2013 AFL Grand Final.

During trade negotiations, information was uncovered which brought into question the legality under AFL rules of Tippett's 2009 contract extension with Adelaide.

[86][87] However, it did find two of Melbourne's then-senior staff members – senior coach Dean Bailey and general manager of football operations Chris Connolly – guilty of "acting in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the competition".

This related most specifically to a meeting in July 2009, which became known colloquially as "the vault", in which Connolly allegedly openly discussed the potential benefits to the club of tanking.

[91] An internal independent review conducted by Dr. Ziggy Switkowski regarding the Essendon Football Club governance processes was released to the public on 6 May.

The charges focussed on the poor business practices within the program, including allowing "a culture of frequent, uninformed and unregulated use of the injection of supplements" at the club, incomplete record keeping which had made it impossible to determine with certainty whether or not players had been administered banned supplements, and for failing to guarantee the health and safety of its players in its program.

[98][99] McGuire initially defended his comments by saying that the remark was simply "a slip of the tongue", but admitted to vilifying Goodes in an interview later in the day, albeit unintentionally.