CARLTON onballer Brock McLean put tanking back on the agenda on Monday, but Blues coach Brett Ratten did his very best to distance himself and his team from the issue on Wednesday.

McLean's frank admission on Fox Footy's On the Couch that he left Melbourne in 2009 because he felt the Demons weren't totally committed to winning made headlines across the country and will see him interviewed by AFL general manager of football operations Adrian Anderson. 

With the injury-hit Blues battling back into finals contention in recent weeks an off-field controversy is the last thing Ratten needs, but he played down the significance of the situation when he spoke to reporters at his weekly press conference. 

"I didn't see the interview. To be honest I haven't looked at the papers, I saw a bit on tanking on the back, but that's all I've seen," Ratten said from Visy Park on Wednesday.

"People say I don't hear a lot of things because you get yelled at so much from the sidelines or the newspapers or the rumours … I try and avoid all of those things.

"I'd rather spend some time with my family, my kids, or try and control the things that I can control and that's trying to get the team up to win.

"We've got a massive game this week [against the Sydney Swans]. I'm not worried what is going on outside - I'm worried about what’s going on internally and we can do about winning games of football. I'm not caught up in what's going on out there."

Pressed on whether he backed McLean's honesty or would have preferred he had kept his thoughts on the matter to himself with the Blues' season delicately poised, Ratten remained noncommittal.

"If he's gone down a path that the AFL thinks he needs to be investigated then he'll have to answer to them," he said.

"Adrian [Anderson] or Andrew [Demetriou] will chat to him somewhere along the line. That will happen pretty soon I dare say because they'll try and work out what's going on. Brock will have to talk to them and work out what's going on."

Ratten wouldn't be drawn on the issue of tanking in the game other than to say previous investigations by the League had uncovered no evidence of the practice.       

"The AFL does their investigations and they go through and look at it," he said.

"They've investigated Melbourne, they've investigated us, and personally as a coach I got investigated twice in regards to this, so I've gone through that procedure and the AFL ticked it off.

"They've done their findings behind the scenes and everything is clear. They've done that, so that's up to them [if they want to revisit it]."

At the time of the press conference Ratten said that he hadn't spoken to McLean about the interview.