Respected broadcaster Gerard Whateley has called out Fremantle for their description of Jesse Hogan’s plight, saying the club had ‘botched’ the delicate situation.

The Dockers were criticised by medical professionals this week for using the term ‘clinical anxiety’ regarding Hogan’s state, with the club later dropping the ‘clinical’ from its descriptions.

Whateley said the mental illness side of the scenario had been “really challenging” on a number of fronts.

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“It’s been marked by a distinct lack of sympathy. The lack of sympathy has been from former players, which I think has been really interesting,” Whateley said on SEN.

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“David Schwarz went really hard, Karl Langdon went really hard, Malcolm Blight too.

“Then you tie into Fremantle tried to put a veneer on this and they’ve been called out on ‘clinical anxiety’ by the medical community as made-up.

“That’s a really bad misstep and when the (AFL) Players Association and Paul Marsh condemns those who question someone brave enough to put their mental health issues out there, this is why.

“This is what’s happened in the last six weeks. There’s been a build-up of suspicion around mental illness being used as a cop-out for poor behaviour and then you get a club who really does botch this.

“That statement they put out was long on detail, but short on the actual story and there were holes that got picked in it along the way.

Camera Icon Jesse Hogan on the training track this week. Credit: Sharon Smith

“It does Jesse no favours, it does the players broadly no favours, I don’t think it does the club any favours. The disconnect between the football-following public and where the players are right now... that divide is so wide and this incident has played a really significant role in it and it sits with Fremantle and the use of ‘clinical anxiety’.

“They wanted it to sound like this was beyond approach, you can’t question this it’s clinical anxiety, except that they made it up. The wording of it mattered.”

Hogan will miss tomorrow’s season opener against North Mebourne after failing to train last Sunday following “poor choices regarding alcohol” the night prior.

But the Dockers this week clarified Hogan had not been suspended from the clash.