{"id":603724,"date":"2026-04-13T08:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603724\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T08:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:27:09","slug":"zak-butters-referred-to-afl-tribunal-after-allegedly-asking-umpire-how-much-are-they-paying-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603724\/","title":{"rendered":"Zak Butters referred to AFL Tribunal after allegedly asking umpire ‘how much are they paying you?’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Port Adelaide star Zak Butters has been referred directly to the AFL Tribunal after allegedly asking field umpire Nick Foot: “How much are they paying you?”<\/p>\n

Butters has been charged with “abusive and insulting language towards an umpire” following the exchange with Foot during Port’s loss to St Kilda on Sunday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The AFL said the exchange was not picked up on the umpire’s microphone.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old defended himself after the match, saying: “I know what I said, and I didn’t say anything bad.”<\/p>\n

“I’d love to know the language that I said because I went up to him [Foot] after the game and obviously wanted to have a chat, like two humans do, and he said he didn’t want to speak to me,” Butters told Channel 7 after the match.<\/p>\n

“All I said was: ‘How is that a free kick?’ And he gave a 50 and said I was on report \u2026 I am curious to follow that one up because I am never going to say anything bad to the umpire.”<\/p>\n

Port will front the tribunal on Tuesday with Butters maintaining his innocence against the charge.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

Should Port fail at the tribunal, Butters is likely to face yet another fine after recently reaching the $50,000 mark in financial sanctions since making his debut in 2019.<\/p>\n

St Kilda forward Liam Ryan was docked $1,500 last year for verbally abusing an umpire while playing for West Coast.<\/p>\n

In 2019, former Collingwood and Carlton player Dale Thomas was sanctioned $7,500 for calling an umpire a cheat, and Sydney veteran Dane Rampe was slapped with a $5,000 fine for telling an umpire he talked “like a little girl”.<\/p>\n

St Kilda ruck Tom De Koning was also handed a $1,500 fine \u2014 or $1,000 for an early guilty plea \u2014 for staging in the fourth quarter against Port Adelaide on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Geelong midfielder Mark O’Connor was slapped with a one-match ban for a high bump on Eagles youngster Willem Duursma in the second quarter of the Cats’ win at Norwood Oval.<\/p>\n

The incident was graded as careless conduct, medium impact and high contact.<\/p>\n

O’Connor will miss Geelong’s home clash against the fourth-placed Western Bulldogs should the club accept the charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Port Adelaide star Zak Butters has been referred directly to the AFL Tribunal after allegedly asking field umpire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,17929,64,63,55,639,12104,85,23510],"class_list":{"0":"post-603724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-afl-tribunal","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australian-football-league","13":"tag-australianfootballleague","14":"tag-port-adelaide-power","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-zak-butters"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603724","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=603724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}