Does the AFL need to find a new system to adjudicate suspensions?
The Tribunal has had a week in the spotlight, with the likes of Chris Scott, Garry Lyon, Gerard Whateley, David King and more slamming the call to overturn Charlie Cameron’s rough conduct suspension due to his good character and lack of previous indiscretions.
This is despite the small forward being reported for rough conduct on five previous occasions.
Veteran South Australian journalist Michelangelo Rucci believes the Tribunal simply does not work anymore, adding that it’s time to scrap and rebuild the concept.
“The AFL has clearly missed it’s duty here whereby as soon as that verdict came forward, which was guilty, even Charlie Cameron pleaded guilty, we know where we are in this whole zone of head-high contact, dumping tackles and concussions,” Rucci told SEN SA’s The Run Home.
“For the AFL to then go ‘we’ll look at it at the end of the year’, no, you have to take this one to the Appeal’s Board and argue that you’re not interested in character.
“Clearly we’re at the point where we need to scrap the Tribunal. It’s a waste of time.
“We’ve go to come up with a better system. It’s got to go. It doesn’t work. You can’t run a competition this way.”
Cameron is free to take on Geelong this week in a must-win clash for the Lions.
