Tom's Editorial | A big night for the AFL Tribunal (14.04.26)

0:00Tuesday morning. This is your town. This is your station. This is Waitley. Good morning. I love footy, but today is a heavy day of football news. At 3pm we will learn the fate of one AFL player who up against the word of two VFL players lost his case last week. And shortly after it will be the word of two AFL players up against the word of one AFL umpire. In both cases, the truth is sharply contested. Who said what? Did Lance collard really say maggot? Did Zack butters really ask Nick foot how much is being paid? Whoever you believe, it's all a bit ugly. And in the middle, as always, is the AFL. And no one supports the AFL. They're trying to stamp out homophobic language in collard's case and protect an umpire in another. I don't know what butters said. I don't know what collard said and I'm not going to begin to guess. But what I do know is yesterday Nick foot was given a few hours to cool down and reassess if he wanted to take it further

1:03and he didn't waver. You're having sat in that chair for 20 years. There's nothing worse outside of vilification that you could say to a match day official. And I'm not allowed to go back. I would get in so much trouble even just for standing my ground and saying don't talk to me like that. And I'm not suggesting Zack do you say this again? It has to be proven yet, right? But more broadly, going out by a cheat or making that inference, is this poor thing that you can say to an umpire? Look, I'm really disappointed if I'm being honest. I'm really disappointed with the way this is all played out and how it's played out here. This is a fellow who I know really well, like you attack the kids, you know, you attack your family, you get it. You're going to be, you want to be very careful. Zack to me is almost like family. I can tell you, you can trust Oli and Zack with your life. And, you know, I can't see how Zack would get on and say what he said, knowing the game so well, knowing that there's mics on, knowing that there's everything being recorded, knowing that 99 out of 100, this will be caught on Mike. Can I just say one other thing on this? And that's both perspectives. That's a perspective

2:06from an umpire and perspective from someone who knows Zack but is really well, Ken Hinkley, on sports day last night. It's not fashionable to support an umpire, but I know Nick Foot and in my experience, he is a good man. He's a grand final umpire and he knows the laws of the game. And one of the laws of the game per section 22.3 D is that an quote, an umpire shall not speak with the reported player or any other player about the report, which has been made. You can say what you want about the report itself. I'm sure people on our open line will on our temper text, you can say what you want about the microphone audio, which is inconveniently gone missing or doesn't exist. And the curiosity of foot through all its sports bet, but an umpire simply isn't allowed to engage with a reported player post game. Now 3 AW isolated the audio, you can make your own mind up. I must admit, my mind did go back to the Tony Jones Matt Head whispers in the sky

3:13controversy 20 years ago. We may never know the truth for sure.