PORT Adelaide star Zak Butters' period in the unwanted spotlight will reach a head when his case is heard by the AFL Appeals Board on Monday evening.
Butters was fined $1500 by the AFL Tribunal last Tuesday for abusing field umpire Nick Foot during the Power's loss to St Kilda in round five.
His appeal hearing is set for 5pm AEST on Monday. AFL.com.au will provide live coverage of the appeal hearing with a live blog in this article.
Clubs can contest a Tribunal decision at the Appeals Board based on one of four reasons:
- Error of law
- That the decision was so unreasonable that no Tribunal acting reasonably could have come to the decision having regard to the evidence before it
- Classification of offence manifestly excessive or inadequate
- Sanction imposed manifestly excessive or inadequate
Port Adelaide CEO Matthew Richardson has indicated the nature of last week's Tribunal hearing, which had a hard deadline and included Tribunal member Jason Johnson later apologising for having to transfer the call from his desktop to his telephone in a car as he awaited another appointment, will form part of the club's defence.
"We are not saying the umpire has lied, we are saying that the process was compromised and that will be addressed in the appeal where we put people in a situation where Tribunal commissioners had other commitments. We shouldn't be putting people in those situations as an industry," Richardson said.
"If you look on all fronts this week, putting Tribunal jurors into situations where they were compromised ... the game is professional enough to have people who are able to commit 100 per cent of their time in those settings, to make sure there is a process that actually does protect people rather than drag them through the process we have seen this week."
More to come ...
