The Essendon Football Club has again moved to clarify the reasons behind its decision to keep its round nine clash against Hawthorn at Colonial Stadium following some mis-information published in today's press.

The following points should be noted.

1. The decision to leave the round nine match against Hawthorn was not a financially-based resolution. If all the speculation in the media regarding crowd size is correct the decision will cost the club in excess of $100,000. That said, the club would obviously not make the decision to leave the match at Colonial Stadium without giving careful consideration to the number of people it expected to attend the game.

2. The club had to weigh up the likelihood of a 65,000-plus crowd attending this match. This decision was based on our own crowd figures and Hawthorn's average away game crowd figures. The average attendances over the past 10 years were also taken into account. The club made the decision on the numbers it had in front of it rather than speculate on what crowd may or may not attend the match. It believes this was the responsible and correct approach.

3. The club entered in to a commercial arrangement with Colonial Stadium and as such both parties can expect to benefit. It would have been opportunistic for Essendon Football Club to move a game from Colonial Stadium for possible financial gain at the expense of Colonial Stadium and its stakeholders.