{"id":622241,"date":"2026-04-21T22:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/622241\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T22:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:06:10","slug":"eddie-mcguire-calls-for-tribunal-roles-to-be-full-time-james-hird-defends-jason-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/622241\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie McGuire calls for tribunal roles to be full-time, James Hird defends Jason Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eddie McGuire<\/a> has implored the AFL<\/a> to make the roles of those who run the tribunal full-time, while James Hird<\/a> has defended juror Jason Johnson over his conflicting commitments in the Zak Butters<\/a> case.<\/p>\n

The Butters tribunal hearing held this month<\/a> turned farcical when it became apparent during the virtual proceedings that Johnson had hopped in his car to drive somewhere.<\/p>\n

According to McGuire, Johnson, who is also a real estate agent, agreed to make himself available for the hearing but told the AFL he must head to an inspection at 5.30pm.<\/p>\n

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Tribunal chair Renee Enbom also agreed to work the hearing but told the league she had another appointment to go to, as well, McGuire said.<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday’s tribunal hearing, regarding Butters’ alleged abuse of umpire Nick Foot, was re-scheduled several times.<\/p>\n

\"MELBOURNE,<\/p>\n

Essendon great Jason Johnson is an AFL tribunal juror.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

McGuire delivered a pointed message on Nine’s Footy Classified on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

“Why don’t we have full-time people?” the former Collingwood president said.<\/p>\n

“They’ve got enough people at the AFL who can do these things.<\/p>\n

“It’s like the umpires. When are we gonna have some full-time umpires so you don’t have to work at Sportsbet or whatever the case may be?<\/p>\n

“Take the pain out before it comes.<\/p>\n

“This was always going to happen. Always. And then when it happens everyone goes, ‘Oh, what’s happening here?’<\/p>\n

“Just sort it out, nice and easy.”<\/p>\n

Butters was fined $1500 for allegedly saying to Foot: “How much are they paying you?”<\/p>\n

But Port Adelaide challenged the decision and the AFL appeals board sensationally quashed the matter, citing “a miscarriage of justice and an error of law”.<\/p>\n

Johnson has copped widespread flak for his decision to drive to the inspection mid-hearing but Hird believes that criticism is unwarranted.<\/p>\n

“I think Jason’s been unfairly criticised,” Hird said on Footy Classified.<\/p>\n

“… The meeting moved around two or three times during the day.<\/p>\n

“It just doesn’t look like a professional outfit at all.<\/p>\n

“It’s not the problem of the actual people on the tribunal \u2013 it’s the system that’s been put in place.”<\/p>\n

Garry Lyon slammed the tribunal hearing as “embarrassing”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eddie McGuire has implored the AFL to make the roles of those who run the tribunal full-time, while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-622241","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\/622241","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=622241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}