{"id":604602,"date":"2026-04-13T18:15:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/604602\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T18:15:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:15:41","slug":"afl-mro-port-star-learns-fate-amid-umpiring-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/604602\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL MRO: Port star learns fate amid umpiring storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Port Adelaide superstar Zak Butters<\/a> has a date with the AFL<\/a> Tribunal, after the Match Review Officer cited the midfielder for abusive and insulting language towards an umpire.<\/p>\n

The umpire at the centre of the furore, Nick Foot, has claimed that Butters said: “How much are they paying you?\u201d<\/p>\n

It is understood Butters will claim he said words to the effect of: “Why are you paying that?”<\/p>\n

The Tribunal, in what looms as a rather classic case of ‘he said, she said’, will sit on Tuesday, at a time yet to be determined.<\/p>\n

The exchange occurred in the third quarter of the Power’s clash with the Saints, after a contentious free kick in St Kilda’s favour. Foot paid a 50-metre penalty as recompense for the alleged abuse, which made the resultant set shot, a certainty.<\/p>\n

It comes as the MRO also cited Geelong utility Mark O’Connor<\/a> for rough conduct, with his hit on prized Eagles recruit Willem Duursma<\/a> deemed as careless conduct, high contact and medium impact – a combination that delineates a one-week ban.<\/p>\n

In a rarity, Saints recruit Tom de Koning was fined $1500 for staging, which can be reduced to $1000 with an early plea.<\/p>\n

In the game’s immediate aftermath, Butters was steadfast in his assertion that he said nothing to warrant the initial penalty, let alone the subsequent investigation.<\/p>\n

“I know what I said, and I didn’t say anything bad,” Butters told Channel Seven, post-match.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’d love to know the language that I said, because I went up to him after the game and obviously just to have a chat \u2014 like any two humans do,\u201d Butters said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he didn’t want to speak to me. All I said was: \u2018How was that a free kick?’ He gave it 50, and said I’m on report.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a few teammates right next to me, Ollie Wines<\/a>. I’m curious to follow that one up, because I’m never going to say anything bad to the umpire. I just want to follow up and ask what he thought I said from his end.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenuinely no swear words (or) any bad language. That’s why I was curious and obviously a bit frustrated, because it led to a goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I’m a pretty honest bloke out there and have a good relationship with most umpires. I’m sure the club will deal with that.”<\/p>\n

In a statement made on their website, the Power used strong language to convey their position, and announce their plans to fight the charge.<\/p>\n

“The Port Adelaide Football Club will defend in the strongest possible way the allegations made by AFL umpire Nick Foot against Butters.<\/p>\n

Port Adelaide believes the words used by Butters were misheard and misconstrued from what was actually said.<\/p>\n

Acting club captain Butters is unambiguously adamant on what was said and the club strongly supports him and his position.<\/p>\n

Former club captain and Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines was standing next to Butters and Foot at the time of the exchange and will provide a witness statement in support of Butters.<\/p>\n

Port Adelaide is also disappointed that umpire Foot dismissively refused Butter’s attempt to seek clarification post-game, as captain of the club.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Port Adelaide superstar Zak Butters has a date with the AFL Tribunal, after the Match Review Officer cited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-604602","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\/604602","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=604602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}