{"id":648759,"date":"2026-05-04T09:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/648759\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T09:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T09:59:08","slug":"afl-umpire-nick-foots-betting-agency-role-over-after-tribunal-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/648759\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL umpire Nick Foot’s betting agency role over after tribunal case"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFL umpire Nick Foot has ended his employment at a betting agency, continuing the fallout from the Zak Butters tribunal controversy.<\/p>\n

Sportsbet said on Monday that any current sports officials or administrators would no longer feature in their programming.<\/p>\n

It emerged last month in the lead-up to the Butters hearing that Foot was working in Sportsbet’s racing coverage.<\/p>\n

The AFL repeatedly backed Foot’s employment at Sportsbet. A league spokesperson on Monday referred media queries to the betting agency.<\/p>\n

“Nick has appeared on our ‘Get On’ racing coverage in a racing\u2011only capacity,” a Sportsbet spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

“Following feedback, we’ve decided to no longer feature any serving sports administrators or officials in our programming, to ensure clear separation from their official roles.<\/p>\n

“We thank Nick for his work and wish him well in his umpiring career.”<\/p>\n

There was no confirmation whether Foot had resigned or if Sportsbet had ended his employment.<\/p>\n

The Seven Network also published a statement from Foot, who said would always value his time at the agency.<\/p>\n

Butters appeal upheld, umpire abuse conviction quashed<\/a><\/p>\n

The AFL appeals board has quashed Zak Butters’s conviction for abusive language against umpire Nick Foot, saying a Tribunal member listening in while driving his car for part of the original hearing constitutes a miscarriage of justice.<\/p>\n

Port Adelaide star Butters was referred to the tribunal and found guilty of abusing Foot in the Gather Round loss to St Kilda at Adelaide Oval. Butters was fined $1,500.<\/p>\n

There was no audio of the incident, and Butters strongly denied Foot’s claim he had asked the umpire, “How much are they paying you?”<\/p>\n

Power teammate Ollie Wines was a witness for Butters at the hearing.<\/p>\n

However, Butters was cleared when the appeals board ruled he was denied natural justice as tribunal member Jason Johnson was driving at stages of the hearing.<\/p>\n

Foot has umpired more than 250 AFL games, including the 2024 grand final.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFL umpire Nick Foot has ended his employment at a betting agency, continuing the fallout from the Zak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[638,64,63,181,141272,21944,4895,294635,588,85,28390,70425,23510],"class_list":["post-648759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-employment","tag-ends","tag-gambling","tag-incident","tag-nick-foot","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-sportsbet","tag-umpire","tag-zak-butters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648759","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=648759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}