{"id":738121,"date":"2026-06-15T13:16:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/738121\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T13:16:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:16:17","slug":"afl-news-2026-malakai-champion-of-the-west-coast-eagles-sent-to-tribunal-for-allegedly-blowing-nose-on-rival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/738121\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026 | Malakai Champion of the West Coast Eagles sent to tribunal for allegedly blowing nose on rival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A young <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/topic\/west-coast-eagles-5sq\" class=\"sc-iihzTf dklAlE\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">West Coast<\/a> player is set to face the WAFL tribunal after allegedly blowing his nose on an opponent during a match on Saturday afternoon. <\/p>\n<p>Malakai Champion was charged with \u201cserious misconduct\u201d for the incident that unfolded during the second term of the club\u2019s game against the Swan Districts.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Malakai Champion of the Eagles warms up.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/d5f744254380c0cb846ac653c0935602d5b934b8d1b9e58bbd7c5d03d2376807.jpeg\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_0b53bae146db0b62 _7475dd3391ee1518\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">Malakai Champion of the Eagles warms up.\u00a0Janelle St Pierre<\/p>\n<p>It is alleged Champion blocked one nostril before blowing out mucus from the other onto the jumper of a nearby opponent. <\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old will face the tribunal to explain his unsportsmanlike act. <\/p>\n<p>Champion has played eight matches in the top flight for the Eagles this season bt was dropped to reserve grade last week.<\/p>\n<p>His hopes of returning to the AFL will likely now be delayed.<\/p>\n<p>It is not the first time this season an incident relating to the transfer of bodily fluids has been sent to the tribunal. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/afl\/news-2026-north-melbourne-kangaroos-tristan-xerri-essendon-bombers-andrew-mcgrath-blood-wipe-incident-video-20260328-p5zjk6.html\" class=\"sc-iihzTf dklAlE\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">North Melbourne\u2019s Tristan Xerri was hit with a three-game ban for wiping blood on Essendon\u2019s Andrew McGrath<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young West Coast player is set to face the WAFL tribunal after allegedly blowing his nose on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-738121","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\/738121","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=738121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}