Eddie McGuire has urged the AFL to overhaul its tribunal system, saying it lost “all credibility” when the league appealed a verdict handed down to Toby Greene last year.
The tribunal is once again in the news for all the wrong reasons following a baffling night of hearings which saw West Coast’s Willie Rioli’s one-match ban overturned, a call that has left those around the game scratching their heads.
While the AFL chose not to appeal the tribunal’s verdict on the Rioli case, it released a statement voicing its displeasure at the Eagles star’s exoneration.
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According to McGuire, the tribunal’s problems stem from when it handed a three-match ban to GWS Giants gun Toby Greene last September, for making contact with an umpire, a verdict which was appealed by the AFL before a six-match ban was ultimately decided upon.
“At the moment I think the AFL is trying to do all things for all people and they ended up doing nothing for nobody,” McGuire told Nine’s Footy Classified.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a one-person problem in any of these situations, but I think we need to completely change the whole system.
“I think it goes back to Toby Greene last year, when he was rubbed out for touching the umpire. I’m not arguing whether six is right or three is right, but I don’t like the idea that you have an independent tribunal that then gets overridden.
“It doesn’t matter (that the tribunal got the Greene verdict incorrect). You sack them, that’s what you do. What that did to me is, you lose all credibility with the tribunal system.”
McGuire said verdicts on players’ indiscretions should be handed down within an hour of the final siren of each match, adding that the final call should be handed to the AFL’s general manager of football, Brad Scott.
“Just interpret the rules as they’re there, not the flavour of the week or what the mothers’ club or anybody else says,” McGuire said.
“I think they’ve got to get rid of a couple of layers, there’s too many moving parts. If it’s (match review officer) Michael Christian, he does that and that’s it.
“(The rulings) should be made on the day. You should be watching the game and you do the review (and) by the time the coach gets to the press conference, they should know that (the player) has been rubbed out for three weeks for the act. They’ve got to have a same-day result.
“(Scott) should have the final say. Get rid of the tribunal, it’s just useless.”
According to ex-Fremantle and St Kilda coach Ross Lyon, there is one key problem with the tribunal system.
“They’re part-timers,” Lyon told Footy Classified.
“Clubs are spending $100 million turnover to win games of AFL football, and we’ve got three part-timers making decisions on full-time positions.”
Lyon admitted that the change in rules around head contact meant coaches also had to adjust the advice they gave their players.
“Why we love Australian rules is that it’s an instinctive, aggressive game, and they just go. As a coach, that’s how we used to coach it, but you can’t coach like that anymore,” Lyon said.
“There’s so much grey, we’re going to see players hesitate, being anxious, and it’s not going to be a great spectacle, to be honest. We love the combat of our game, but we want to protect the head.
“‘Harder and lower’ was the mantra. We go harder and we go lower than the opposition, (but) you can’t coach that anymore.”