{"id":459209,"date":"2026-02-05T03:22:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T03:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/459209\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T03:22:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T03:22:22","slug":"afl-integrity-unit-looking-into-why-police-visited-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/459209\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL integrity unit looking into why police visited May"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Melbourne veteran Steven May is being investigated by the <a href=\"http:\/\/espn.com.au\/afl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AFL<\/a> integrity unit, as the premiership defender stays away from Demons training.<\/p>\n<p>The 34-year-old was a notable absentee when Melbourne trained at Gosch&#8217;s Paddock on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Later on Wednesday, Melbourne released a statement saying the club was aware Victoria Police attended May&#8217;s house last Thursday, but would not comment further.<\/p>\n<p>STAY IN THE KNOW WITH ESPN<img decoding=\"async\" data-lazyload=\"true\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/r1589538_608x342_16-9.png\" class=\"round lazyload\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Stay across all the big sports news &#8212; sign up to our weekly newsletters here!<\/p>\n<p>SUBSCRIBE<\/p>\n<p>The circumstances of why police were called to May&#8217;s home remain unknown.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a partnership extension with Virgin Australia, AFL boss Andrew Dillon confirmed the league was investigating May&#8217;s situation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve been kept abreast of that by Melbourne,&#8221; Dillon said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our integrity unit is across it at the moment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Since it emerged last Friday that police had visited his home the previous day, May has deleted his Instagram account.<\/p>\n<p>A star of Melbourne&#8217;s drought-breaking 2021 premiership, May will be a restricted free agent at the end of this season.<\/p>\n<p>The former Gold Coast co-captain was a key figure in last year&#8217;s trade period, but failed to find a new home.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Steven May was absent from Melbourne training on Wednesday.\u00a0Josh Chadwick\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Off the field, May and Richmond midfielder Dion Prestia are fighting criminal charges after a late-2024 brawl in Sorrento on Victoria&#8217;s Mornington Peninsula.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, the pair asked for the charges to be withdrawn, saying they were not there.<\/p>\n<p>They are due to face Frankston Magistrates Court again on February 20.<\/p>\n<p>May, 34, played 16 senior games last year for a career total of 251.<\/p>\n<p>He also had a much-scrutinised argument on the field with captain Max Gawn after the narrow King&#8217;s Birthday loss to Collingwood.<\/p>\n<p>May has been a regular in the Demons&#8217; best 23 for several seasons, but that is now in question.<\/p>\n<p>The Demons are in major transition, with coach Simon Goodwin sacked last year and Steven King appointed for his first senior role.<\/p>\n<p>Star onballers Christian Petracca (Gold Coast) and Clayton Oliver (GWS) were traded after last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne veteran Steven May is being investigated by the AFL integrity unit, as the premiership defender stays away&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-459209","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\/459209","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=459209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}