Port Adelaide are demanding an overhaul of the AFL Tribunal system in the wake of Zak Butters’ case which has been labelled a “debacle”.
The Power remain incensed Butters’ testimony was rejected by the tribunal in the controversial case which sparked what St Kilda coach Ross Lyon described as “a firestorm”.
“The tribunal process needs to be reformed,” Port’s chief executive officer Matthew Richardson told reporters on Thursday.
“It’s too legalistic, it’s too adversarial and it places people under a level of scrutiny and stress that is disproportionate to the nature of the incidents that it’s designed to resolve.
“We’ll find the solution but let’s use this as the moment to do that.”
Port and Butters will front the AFL Appeals Board on Monday after the tribunal found the star midfielder guilty of abusing umpire Nick Foot in a Sunday night game. He was fined $1500.
Richardson sidestepped whether his club would be comfortable with Foot umpiring future games involving Port and Butters.
“I don’t really want to talk about the individual,” he said.
“On the whole, all of those people do an incredible job … as an industry, as a game, we can do better for them, not put them into these situations.”
Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell described the Butters case as a “debacle”.
“There are much better ways we could have handled this … it has been really messy; no-one’s winning out of this battle,” he told reporters in Melbourne.
And Saints coach Lyon signalled an appeal to Lance Collard’s seven week suspension for making a homophobic comment to an opponent.
In both the Collard and Butters cases, the tribunal rejected evidence from the players who denied making the offensive remarks.
“It’s a firestorm and the AFL is in the middle of it and the processes are in the middle of it,” Lyon told reporters in Adelaide.
“All of us from club-land are concerned about our individual players and the stress that they’re put through and potential damage to that individual – whether it’s Butters or Collard or the people being caught up on the other side of the fence.”
Asked if the Saints would appeal Collard’s suspension – his second ban for using a homophobic slur – Lyon replied: “Clearly, we’ll take it as far as we can. What that looks like, I don’t know.”
St Kilda have until Saturday to lodge an appeal against the Collard sanction, which was announced on Tuesday – the same day as Butters’ tribunal hearing.
Port believe Butters was branded a liar by the tribunal, which found it was “implausible that Mr Foot would invent the offending comment”.
Foot told the tribunal: “The comment that Butters made to me was ‘how much are they paying you?’ It questioned my integrity.”
Butters vehemently denied making that comment.
Brisbane coach Chris Fagan echoed other coaches in querying how the tribunal reached its decision.
“Both (Foot and Butters) think they’re right. I don’t know how you decide when there’s no conclusive evidence … that didn’t seem to make any sense to me,” Fagan told reporters in Brisbane.
Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge urged “common sense”.
“We have got to protect the umpires but the players also need support as well,” he told reporters in Melbourne.
“I don’t know how that can happen in this situation.”
