They can issue charge, but I think to actually go for a prosecution would require co-operation of the victim.
I think it’s actually a bad idea for cops to get involved, it can lead to a double jeopardy situation where you can face police charges, footy tribunal and possibly even internal club suspension. The tribunal’s there for a reason.
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Umpires at many games lack peripheral vision.
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Yeah, my point was more that Leigh Matthews was calling for it - the only player to have ever been deregistered, and for a very similar act.
FROM HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY
“However, what remains a mystery to Matthews was that, just days after he appeared before the commission, Victoria Police charged him with ‘‘assault causing grievous bodily harm’’, with the case to be heard in the Melbourne Magistrates Court. In his just released autobiography , Matthews says he ‘‘did the wrong thing so I can’t really complain about the consequences of my actions’’.”
''But even in retrospect the second is a lot more confusing. Why the police decided to pluck this one incident from the many potential assaults that have occurred on football fields over the decades is still a great mystery."
YESTERDAY
The man many consider to be the greatest in the sport’s history was deregistered by the league and initially convicted in court before appealing and escaping with good behaviour bond.
In the wake of the Gaff incident where he left the young Fremantle player with a broken jaw and three displaced teeth, Matthews said on Monday that his thoughts towards police action had changed.
Matthews said players were “not outside the law of the land”, and that ‘‘the guilt and the shame will live with Andrew Gaff for the rest of his life.’’
"I don’t think they [police] need to be [involved] but I guess from a personal experience, 30-odd years ago, 1985, when I actually did something similar to what Andrew Gaff did, there was no video evidence so there was no report but the police investigated it and eventually the AFL said: ‘We have to do something’.
''I was taken before - and Steve Hocking actually who spread my nose across my face thereafter … we both went to the Commission for bringing the game into disrepute. He got found not guilty, I got found guilty and deregistered for four or five weeks.
"But the police still laid the assault charge. There was vision of it, there was video of it, so I pleaded guilty because I thought: ‘How can you plead not guilty to something that is clearly there in technicolour?’ I was convicted and we appealed and I got a good behaviour bond.
“I thought footy back then, you were putting yourself almost into war without weapons but clearly now, maybe it’s the vision part of it, I am not saying the police should but the option is available because you are not outside the law of the land. That’s the view I have come with over the years.”
(So what are you actually saying Leigh - or are you just making this about yourself again - trying to make yourself a victim?)
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If they bring this in you know that we’ve gone way too PC. Just ban the hell out of those that deserve it and it will continue to keep oyhers in line. Knee jerk reactions for optics won’t help the game and a red card system affects the game too much and will cause controversial decisions.
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Does anyone honestly want the umpires to have more power?
All it takes is for a player to mouth off at an umpire in the heat of the moment, for that umpire to get hot headed and react with a yellow card.
I guarantee it happens. I’ve done it multiple times. you end up leaving the game, thinking that was abit harsh.
Or an umpire to guess what happened off the ball, and start flashing red cards around. It will destroy the game.
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Or imagine the Bellchambers behind the play love tap on Naitanui sternum is red carded.
It would be a travesty.
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Closing argument as to why referees/umpires shouldn’t have the power to expel players within a game
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Dunno. Many times at most games I wonder why they’re not actually watching the play but irrelevant crap away from it (and still can’t identify shepherds fifty metres off the ball).
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Dunkley eye-gouging Hird just so they win a final?
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Dunkley clearly isn’t very good at eye gouging. He missed Hird’s eye by about 2".
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I believe he also eye-gouged the umps’ eyes beforehand so that they wouldn’t notice him holding down the best player on the ground waaaay off the play.
Only possible explanation for them missing that, amirite?
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Probably the same thing(s) that prevent that from happening already?
Just like our guys did with doping saga you mean…how awful would that be
the police investigated it because the guy’s mother pressed charges !!
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umpires at many games lack any vision whatsoever
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Imagine a player snapping and kicking someone intentionally in the head and staying on the field.
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Take the field umpires out of it. Use the goal review peeps.
There’d have to be a minimum injury level, e.g. injured player off for the game.
The same ones that didn’t think Jenkins’ kick on the weekend hit the post?
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If the send off rule is good enough for Blitz, then it should be good enough for the AFL.
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