Are Eddie's ethics everywhere?

McGuire rubbishes suggestions Swan didn't get club support.

Swan denies he, or anyone at Collingwood, has drug problem.

Eddie McGuire on the set of Fox Footy show EMT. Picture: Ian Currie Source: Herald Sun

EDDIE McGuire is up in arms.

Fine Dane Swan $25,000 he says, just to make a point.

Blacklist The Footy Show.

There is a principal at stake, says the Magpie president - and, bizarrely, former The Footy Show host and current Channel 9 heavyweight.

Eddie says protocols are important. He doesn't have an issue with what Swanny said last night, but he didn't follow protocol and neither did the TV station.

"I'll give you the tip now, it won't ever happen at Collingwood again," McGuire said on Triple M this morning.

"Because every player who does not follow protocol at Collingwood, and I would speak for every club now, is going to get blistered and blistered hard.

"I was quite happy with what Swanny said last night ... but the protocol has been absolutely jumped over the top of."

Which makes you wonder if McGuire remembers saying this in March last year:

"If James Brayshaw was good enough to get an interview with a player who invited him into his house and was going to run it on Thursday night on The Footy Show, good luck to him."

That was after he and a crew from his show Eddie McGuire Tonight paid a house call to troubled then-Melbourne star Liam Jurrah.

I'm not worried about the issues – I got the story, it went to air, full stop.

McGuire conducted a personal interview with Jurrah, his mother and his grandmother, following Jurrah's return from Alice Springs for a court appearance on serious assault charges.

The interview angered the Demons, who had not given permission to speak to their troubled star, and prompted questions about McGuire's conflict of interest as the president of a rival club.

But McGuire was unrepentant.

"I don't care if there is a conflict or not in this situation," McGuire said during a heated exchange on SEN.

"The point is this – I've been a president and a journalist for 12 years now. Wake up and smell the roses.

"I'm not worried about the issues – I got the story, it went to air, full stop.

"If I'm being dammed because I got a massive exclusive, with a player who trusted me and invited me into his home to do an interview with him and his nanna, and accurately reported it and did it in a tasteful way that didn't cause any ructions between club and player and actually soothed the situation and gave it a human dimension - that to me is what journalism is all about."

McGuire said Melbourne CEO Cameron Schwab "knew I was doing the meeting," but brushed off the question on whether or not he was actually given permission.

The Magpies president could claim there is one difference between the interviews - he says Jurrah approached him, not the other way around, and McGuire said this morning Jurrah was not paid - but tellingly McGuire declared that if a rival president scored a similar exclusive with a Collingwood player he would applaud them - even if it was done without the Pies' permission.