{"id":605944,"date":"2026-04-14T09:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T09:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/605944\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T09:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T09:21:08","slug":"st-kildas-lance-collard-given-lengthy-ban-by-afl-for-homophobic-slur-afl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/605944\/","title":{"rendered":"St Kilda\u2019s Lance Collard given lengthy ban by AFL for homophobic slur | AFL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">St Kilda forward Lance Collard has been banned for seven weeks by the AFL tribunal for directing a homophobic slur towards an opponent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The penalty, which includes a further two-week ban suspended until the end of the 2027 season, was announced at a sanctions hearing on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">St Kilda, who argued for a financial penalty or a maximum of a four-week ban with two of those weeks suspended, have previously indicated the possibility of an appeal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/afl\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AFL<\/a> had argued for a 10-week ban.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Tuesday\u2019s penalty comes after the tribunal last Friday upheld a charge of \u201cconduct unbecoming\u201d against Collard, who had denied allegations he called his Frankston opponent a \u201cfucking faggot\u201d during a VFL match last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Collard, who was also banned for six matches when he pleaded guilty to using the same homophobic word in 2024, was adamant he did not use it this time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Instead, the 21-year-old insisted he said, \u201cCome here, maggot\u201d, to Frankston player Darby Hipwell. But Hipwell was adamant that was not the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cHe had his head up against my ear and he said the words to me, \u2018Darby, you \u2018fucking faggot\u2019,\u201d Hipwell said in his evidence at the tribunal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The allegation from Hipwell was supported by his Frankston teammate Bailey Lambert, who also gave evidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Hipwell and Collard previously played together with VFL club Sandringham when that side was St Kilda\u2019s state-league affiliate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Collard has played 15 AFL games, after being selected by the Saints in the 2023 draft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">He is also serving a two-match ban stemming from a high hit on an opponent in the same VFL match last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Collard\u2019s fresh seven-week suspension will start after his striking ban is completed, meaning Collard won\u2019t be free to play at any level until June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">St Kilda last week said they would continue to support Collard, who is contracted until the end of 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St Kilda forward Lance Collard has been banned for seven weeks by the AFL tribunal for directing a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-605944","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\/605944","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=605944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}