{"id":251333,"date":"2025-10-30T17:12:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/251333\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T17:12:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:12:16","slug":"veteran-afl-duo-charged-over-alleged-brawl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/251333\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran AFL duo charged over alleged brawl"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richmond’s Dion Prestia denies he was involved in a brawl that led to police charges against himself and fellow AFL veteran Steven May.<\/p>\n

Prestia and Melbourne’s All Australian defender May will front court next month after being charged over a fight in the Victorian coastal town of Sorrento last December.<\/p>\n

Prestia is protesting his innocence after being charged with recklessly causing serious injury.<\/p>\n

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“I have today been charged with the offense of recklessly causing serious injury as a result of an altercation that apparently took place on Boxing Day 2024 at Sorrento,” Prestia said in a statement issued by Richmond.<\/p>\n

“I was not involved in the fight. I was not even physically present when it apparently took place.<\/p>\n

“I deny that I am guilty of these offences and will strenuously defend these charges.”<\/p>\n

Richmond said the club would offer support to Prestia ahead of his court appearance.<\/p>\n

“Dion strenuously denies any wrongdoing and will defend himself accordingly,” a club statement said.<\/p>\n

“As with any member of the community, he is entitled to the presumption of innocence.”<\/p>\n

Melbourne’s May, charged with affray, has yet to comment publicly.<\/p>\n

Steven May.\u00a0Morgan Hancock\/AFL Photos\/via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Victoria Police said the AFL duo, former teammates at Gold Coast, were charged by Mornington Crime Investigation detectives.<\/p>\n

Police alleged two groups of men were involved in an altercation on Point Nepean Road at Sorrento about 2am on December 27 last year.<\/p>\n

“Two men were taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries at the time,” police said in a statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“Detectives interviewed three men in May as part of their investigation.”<\/p>\n

May and Prestia were charged along with a 26-year-old man from Blairgowrie, who will face a count of affray.<\/p>\n

May and Prestia, who started their AFL careers together at Gold Coast, will front Dromana Magistrates Court on November 27.<\/p>\n

Prestia is a three-time premiership player with Richmond who won the club’s best-and-fairest award in 2019.<\/p>\n

He started his career with May at the Suns in 2011, moved to the Tigers in 2017, and has played 237 AFL games.<\/p>\n

May, after making his debut with Gold Coast in 2011, captained the club from 2017-18 before joining the Demons for the 2019 season.<\/p>\n

The premiership player and dual All Australian has played 251 AFL games, but faced an uncertain future at the club when told to explore trade options last month.<\/p>\n

No clubs sought to trade in the key defender, who remains contracted at Melbourne until the end of next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richmond’s Dion Prestia denies he was involved in a brawl that led to police charges against himself and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-251333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251333","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=251333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}