Has there been any discusion of this here?
"FREMANTLE midfielder Des Headland cried as he walked free from the AFL Tribunal last night despite being found guilty of striking and wrestling in a bizarre hearing.
In a strange twist, the tribunal waived any penalty after it found exceptional and compelling circumstances by way of provocation, even though it had earlier cleared West Coast Eagles’ Adam Selwood of making explicit sexual references to Headlands young daughter."
Interest in this matter here seems slight.
Headland has a large tattoo of his daughter’s face on his arm. His version of events is: that Selwood pointed to the tatoo and said “I fucked her”. Headland said something like “What the hell are you talking about? That’s my six year old daughter” to which Selwood replied, “Yeah, she’s a slut.”
Headland then went Birko.
I think the tribunal did OK. They accepted that there was not enough evidence to convict Selwood, but there was enough evidence to suggest that Headland really thought that he’d said something like that and that he shouldn’t face a penalty for hitting Selwood.
A sledge like that is way over the line. Selwood’s version - that he didn’t understand that it was Headland’s daughter and that he didn’t use naughty words - would bring things back to merely rather distasteful.
It’s an ugly business. The continued scrutiny of the game means that old codes of silence are not going to be viable. There will be ongoing tension between cleaning up ugly practices and winning: the Eagles have built a close-knit and highly effective unit. They also appear to be a gang of thuggish bogans who slag people off, take drugs and associate with organised criminals. Two sides of the same coin.