Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
North Melbourne ruckman Tristan Xerri has been sent directly to the AFL tribunal on a charge of serious misconduct after he wiped blood on Essendon captain Andy McGrath’s face.
Xerri is facing a lengthy ban, with AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon eager to see such incidents stamped out of the game.
“It’s something that we don’t want to see,” Dillon said on Sunday.
“That’s been assessed by the match review officer and it will go directly to the tribunal, and that will either be heard on Monday or Tuesday night.
“It’s not something we want to see on our fields.”
Xerri had complained to an umpire about a blood nose before kicking a goal and clashing physically with McGrath.
The 27-year-old ruckman then touched his bloody nose and wiped his hand on McGrath’s face.
A multi-match ban for Xerri would leave North Melbourne vulnerable in the ruck ahead of clashes with Carlton, the Brisbane Lions and Richmond in coming weeks.
Xerri will likely face a greater penalty than the one-match suspension handed to former Collingwood captain Nathan Buckley when he wiped blood on Geelong tagger Cameron Ling’s jumper in 2002.
Buckley later admitted it was a tactic designed to force Ling off the ground under the blood rule.
Ling on Sunday recalled there was “no malice” in the Buckley incident, but declared Xerri’s action unacceptable in the modern game.
“I don’t want a young player that I’m coaching in the under-12s this season seeing that and thinking that’s OK to do on a footy field,” Ling said on ABC Radio.
“I don’t want a local footballer doing it, I don’t want anyone else in the AFL doing it. I get there needs to be a punishment.
“I look at it more from a lens of the overall sport of football. That act is not an acceptable act on the football field.”
Meanwhile, Dillon said an investigation is ongoing into allegations St Kilda player Lance Collard used a homophobic slur in a VFL game against Frankston.
The allegation comes less than two years after Collard served a six-game ban for the same offence.
“That’s being investigated and it is an allegation, so we’ll look into that,” Dillon said.
“I got asked about this a couple of weeks ago and it’s not something that we want to be dealing with.”
Collard will also face scrutiny for high contact on a Frankston player, which sparked an on-field brawl.
Collard’s 2024 ban while he was playing for VFL side Sandringham, then affiliated with the Saints, was among several cases of homophobic slurs that prompted an AFL crackdown.
It culminated in Adelaide star Izak Rankine being banned for four AFL games at the end of last season after an incident in a game against Collingwood.
Rankine missed the Crows’ finals series and returned from the suspension for their round-three loss to the Western Bulldogs.
