“It’s a farce”: Mike Sheahan calls out AFL Tribunal after marathon hearings

Veteran Australian football journalist Mike Sheahan has described the AFL Tribunal as a farce.

Sheahan’s big call came after Kysaiah Pickett and Matt Owies faced the Tribunal on Tuesday night. Pickett’s case began at 6:30pm and Owies eventually learned his fate after midnight following two marathon hearings.

While both Melbourne and Carlton argued their player’s respective cases, the Tribunal ultimately upheld the MRO’s decision to ban Pickett for three weeks for his bump on Darcy Moore and Owies for one week for his dangerous tackle on Jack Higgins.

With both cases failing, the Tribunal was ultimately a waste of time and resources for both clubs and the AFL and Sheahan thinks that the process must be streamlined as cases are seemingly dragging out to absurd lengths.

He discussed his issues with the Tribunal alongside SEN Breakfast hosts Garry Lyon and Tim Watson.

Sheahan: “There was a Tribunal hearing on Tuesday night that lasted six hours for two relatively minor cases.

“What is going on? Is it a court of law, is it? Murder trials don’t go that long.”

Watson: “We’ve invited the legal people and the biomechanists and all these other people in.”

Sheahan: “Well, uninvite them.

“I think maybe the AFL has to consider this and say, ‘We don't have specialist legal opinion’, or do something that just streamlines it.”

Watson: “How can you say to everybody, ‘You can't have proper representation, you can’t have legal representation’?”

Sheahan: “It makes it look like a farce when it takes six hours for two minor charges.”

Watson: “I agree with that.

Lyon: “The start time is a disgrace because it ended up going past midnight.”

Sheahan: “One thing I will say about it - and I don't know what they can do to streamline it - but how can Liam Jones get off and Matt Owes goes out for what looked to me the same thing?”

Lyon: “That's a whole other rabbit hole. That’s a hard one because that'll be argued forever and a day that was on contact and degree of contact.”

Watson: “I get what you're saying, but that's why legal cases go on and on … once you invite the legal people in for representation and everybody is able to do that, then that's what we're going to have.

Sheahan: “If we three were the Tribunal would it take us long to decide?”

Lyon: “No. That’s the easy answer.”

Sheahan: “I'd sit here with you and you'd say, ‘We've given Owies a week’, and then I would say, ‘Well, why didn't you give Jones a week?’.”

Owies' case was eventually wrapped up at 12:24am on Wednesday, with both cases taking close to a combined six hours to be heard.