Melbourne legend Garry Lyon has teed off over a juror in the Zak Butters tribunal hearing jumping in their car to drive somewhere at the pointy end, labelling it “embarrassing” and saying it made the AFL look like a “circus”.
In a virtual tribunal hearing on Tuesday afternoon, Port Adelaide‘s Butters was found guilty of saying to umpire Nick Foot during Sunday’s game against St Kilda: “How much are they [the Saints] paying you?”
The Power confirmed in a statement on Wednesday night that they would appeal the guilty verdict.
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It came to light during the tribunal hearing that one of the two jurors, Jason Johnson, had got in his car to drive to an appointment.
Speaking on Fox Footy’s AFL 360 on Wednesday night, Lyon unloaded.
“Sometimes we’ve gotta save ourselves from ourselves,” Lyon said.
“If it’s me, if it’s your reputation on the line, and it’s a hotly disputed argument and there’s a level of detail that needs to be absorbed, I don’t want the bloke who’s sitting in judgment of me … in a car, in transit.
Zak Butters during Sunday’s game against St Kilda. AFL Photos via Getty Images
“I want them sitting down, taking copious amounts of notes, cross-referencing, listening intently and not being distracted by what may or may not be going on on the outside world because you’re in a car, and the fact that you may go past the local McDonald’s and your car might drop out, the service drops out, and then you’ve gotta come back in.
“It’s embarrassing at worst.
“How would that wash on the world stage?
“This is a multibillion-dollar business, a multibillion-dollar organisation, we are demanding the absolute best in every aspect of what we do in the football community, and the world stage come in and say, ‘Right, I’m watching this, this is how you’re gonna do your case, there’s the closing arguments that come on’. And where’s the jury? Where are the people who are gonna pass judgment on this? One of them is in the car.
“How’s that wash? What’s that look like?”
Johnson, who played 184 games with Essendon, was one of two jurors along with Richmond great Darren Gaspar. The tribunal hearing was chaired by Renee Enbom.
Tribunal resources were stretched thin with the Lance Collard judgment taking place simultaneously, and the Butters case had been re-scheduled several times.
“I’m not having a crack at Jason Johnson; apparently it got changed around and that sort of stuff. But we’ve gotta be better than that,” Lyon continued.
“I know there’s other things in all of this, but you can’t be having a juror who’s about to pass judgment on the hottest case going around, it’s all about integrity, it’s all about who said what when, you’re about to highlight some of the delicate timings of all this, and where’s the bloke? Oh, he had to go, he had something [on], he’s in the car.
“Come on – that just makes us look like a circus.”
Wide World of Sports contacted the AFL for comment.