The AFL has spent the last month slapping wrists and fining for players small change for flipping the bird. Tsk, tsk.
This week the league thought that actually looked like fun and flipped the bird back at the players. It was a figurative bird, but a bird nonetheless.
Willie Rioli has not been fined by the AFL.Credit: Getty Images
On Monday, it emerged that Port Adelaide’s Willie Rioli had still been brooding after Saturday’s belting by the Bulldogs and allegedly sent a message to a Dogs player he knew, telling them to let Bailey Dale know he was well-connected in Darwin and Dale might want to be careful leaving his hotel room. Such a comment would alarm most players.
Saturday’s game had been edgy. A lot of rubbish was spoken on the field but both clubs stressed there was nothing racial in the sledging that went both ways.
Deliberately offensive and moronic? Yes. Fat shaming? No doubt. Different from the sort of stuff said on the field in other games? A little spicier, but otherwise the standard nonsense.
That Rioli had lingering anger towards Dale, a player no one seems to have ever found particularly disagreeable, had more to do with the fact that Rioli was fined for hitting Dale in a clash off the ball. He had been retaliating to Dale’s hit on him, but the Dogs player had escaped punishment.
When news of Rioli’s alleged threat broke, Port and his manager contacted him and Rioli removed any relevant social media posts about the game and Dale. He apologised and said essentially it was not meant as anything serious, but he wanted to put the wind up Dale.
Bailey Smith interacted with a member of the crowd at the Adelaide Oval after Geelong’s round five win.Credit: X
Though the AFL has happily fined players for giving the finger this year – Bailey Smith seemingly most weeks – in pantomime moments of by-play, the league decided against fining Rioli for his post-match message.
That same league fined Power coach Ken Hinkley heavily for his carry-on with Jack Ginnivan after a semi-final last year, then gleefully promoted the incident when the teams met this year.
They choose their moments to be offended most at Docklands.
Rioli, after the game and in the cold light of day, chose to make an alleged threat. How is that less worthy of penalty than smiling and sticking up a finger?
The AFL has had a difficult year wrestling with this equivalence of on-field theatre and findings and allegations of off-field actual and threatened violence.
Noah Balta was banned for only four home-and-away matches for pleading guilty to an off-field assault for which he has now been convicted. He is subject to a curfew that will create an additional bar on him playing night games and interstate.
It was left to the magistrate to find the right suspension.
What’s been levelled against Rioli was by no means on the same scale as Balta. It did not deserve a suspension, but it did not deserve nothing. Without any sanction, the AFL is just flipping the bird at players who have been punished for less.
