Racing
League
Rugby
Cricket
Golf
Motorsport
Combat Sports
Football
Netball
Basketball
Other Sports
Sport Nation
Find your Sport Nation frequency“Wasting everybody’s time”: AFL blasted over Cerra quibble
Connor Scanlon • July 16th, 2025 2:01 pm
The AFL has come under fire after Carlton midfielder Adam Cerra was dragged to the Tribunal over a controversial mid-season rule change which was introduced in Round 17.
The rule change enforced that players with a fourth or subsequent careless umpire contact charge within two years are sent straight to the Tribunal to face a possible suspension, and their clubs are fined a minimum of $5,000.
The AFL Players Association, led by President and Collingwood captain Darcy Moore, immediately disputed the rule change, publicly stating, “They ultimately believe these fines aren’t proportionate to the acts committed,” and demanded a sit-down discussion with the AFL.
When Cerra was cited for a fourth offence during last Thursday’s match against Brisbane, he became the first player affected by the rule.
Though he was cleared of suspension, the AFL pushed for a $6,250 fine to “send a message” to the players, which is $1,250 more than the $5,000 baseline Carlton argued for.
The final fine the AFL and Carlton agreed upon was $5,500.
That fiscal sanction ended up just $750 short of what the league originally sought after, leaving the AFL world baffled by the ordeal.
Gerard Whateley was particularly miffed.
“I’ve covered the Tribunal since I was a cub reporter,” Gerard Whateley told Fox Footy’s AFL 360.
“I’ve seen high farce when cases were cooked up in the lifts and the chairman present!
“I’ve seen players blatantly lie and purge themselves. I’ve heard bio-mechanists invent the most fanciful stories. I have seen character witness, submissions from Prime Ministers to lower penalties.”
But Whateley admitted he has never seen anything as absurd and foolish as the Cerra case from the AFL.
“Tonight, the AFL has reached new levels of high farce, as they quibbled over $1,250 with a panel of lawyers who will shortly bill for about $30,000,” Whateley revealed.
“To go into a Tribunal hearing with two lawyers... the two members of the jury and the admin staff ... to quibble over $1,250 to set this principal, I don’t think they have quite achieved what they wanted to achieve.
“This is just wasting everybody’s time. If you want to ramp the fines up, just write it into the guidelines and ramp the fines up.”
Footy Classified’s panellists also piled on about how embarrassingly ridiculous the AFL are acting right now.
Tom Morris: “They were arguing and squabbling this evening over $1,250.”
James Hird: “The cleaners would’ve cost more than twelve hundred dollars.”
Eddie McGuire: “If you turn the lights on it’d cost more!
“Isn’t this something you do on the phone during the day (where) the AFL say, ‘Hey listen, you’ve plead guilty, we didn’t give you (a) $10,000 (fine), we’re giving you six (thousand)’.
“Because you’ve been up four times, cop your whack (and) shut up. Or if you don’t, you get four weeks, which one do you want?’”
The criticism extended even beyond the media with Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin also attacking the AFL.
“We can’t just keep fining people,” Goodwin told Footy Classified.
“I’d hate to see the amount of fines that players are getting, I reckon they would probably be getting sick of it.
“Can we come together to make the required changes to help the safety of the umpires, and not be fining players all the time?”
With growing backlash from both the AFLPA and media, the league now faces pressure to rethink the enforcement of its newest rule, and whether the pursuit of fines is worth the cost of its own credibility.
