{"id":16089,"date":"2025-07-23T13:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T13:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/16089\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T13:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T13:58:10","slug":"melbourne-demons-star-steven-may-cops-three-game-suspension-at-tribunal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/16089\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne Demons star Steven May cops three-game suspension at tribunal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melbourne<\/a> star Steven May<\/a> has been suspended at the AFL tribunal<\/a> after a nasty incident in his side’s clash with Carlton<\/a> last weekend.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old was referred straight to the tribunal for a hit that left Francis Evans bloodied and substituted out of the match at the MCG.<\/p>\n

The MRO deemed the incident was careless with severe impact and high contract, with the Demons entering a plea of not guilty and claiming it was “not unreasonable”.<\/p>\n

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READ MORE: Swans rookie cops monster ban for homophobic slur<\/a><\/p>\n

May has now been slapped with a three-game ban for the incident, ruling him out of upcoming fixtures against St Kilda, West Coast and Western Bulldogs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Steven May’s bump on Francis Evans\u00a0Fox Footy\/Getty<\/p>\n

The premiership-winning defender gave evidence at the tribunal, claiming he believed he was “going to get to the ball first” and couldn’t pull out of contact with Evans.<\/p>\n

“I just can’t believe I didn’t take possession,” May said at the hearing.<\/p>\n

“I thought I did everything right, so I’m just a bit shocked.”<\/p>\n

The AFL argued that May had breached the “duty of care” and should have been able to “change his momentum or trajectory” before colliding with the Blues player.<\/p>\n

Melbourne also attempted to use a text message exchange between May and Evans as part of their evidence, which the AFL seeked to have dismissed due to late submission.<\/p>\n

After a lengthy deliberation, May’s suspension was upheld. <\/p>\n

In the initial aftermath of the incident, Essendon great James Hird sympathised with May and claimed that five years ago he wouldn’t have been suspended.<\/p>\n

“I feel for Steven May – this is a really difficult one,” he told Nine’s Sunday Footy Show.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think he has gone out on purpose to hurt anybody.<\/p>\n

“Five years ago, it wouldn’t of got weeks. But the rules have changed and unfortunately for him his shoulder gets him in the head.”<\/p>\n

May will likely return to the Demons line-up for the clash with Hawthorn on August 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne star Steven May has been suspended at the AFL tribunal after a nasty incident in his side’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-16089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}