The AFL has written to all clubs to advise the new appointees who would make up the Match Review Panel for the upcoming 2015 Toyota AFL Premiership Season.
AFL General Manager Football Operations Mark Evans said the AFL had appointed four new MRP members after revising the operations of the Panel late last year - Luke Ball, Nathan Burke, Michael Christian and Brad Sewell.
AFL General Manager Football Operations Mark Evans will be available to media at AFL House today, Friday February 13, at 9.30am.
Mr Evans said the AFL was delighted with the quality of applicants who had sought to be part of the altered MRP process, which had been changed last year to simplify the understanding of the game’s judiciary process for all members of the football community.
"Our MRP members boast four premierships and nearly 900 games of AFL experience between them," Mr Evans said.
"They are outstanding candidates to assess, on football terms, the incidents that occur on-field and to make a deliberation on whether a player should face any penalty under the laws of the game.
"The panel mixes recently retired players in Luke and Brad, who have strong experience of the modern game, alongside Michael and Nathan who each have more than three decades of experience at the highest level to call upon for their decision-making."
Mr Evans said three of the four panel members would rule on incidents each week, with the make-up of the panel regularly altering through the season. A chairman would not be appointed, with a majority 2-1 or 3-0 ruling on each incident to determine whether a charge was laid.
As a reminder to all media, the AFL Commission approved the following key changes to the MRP system late last year, after a review period through 2014;
- All offences to now be categorised as fines or weeks of suspension, no longer using any reference to base demerit points;
- The elimination of carry over points on any offence;
- Conduct now to be graded in two categories only intentional or careless;
- The MRP to issue fines, two-game and three-game suspensions, with more serious offences referred to the Tribunal;
- Simplification of the Bad Record provisions, with a maximum addition of a one extra week's suspension on a penalty;
- Retention of discounts for early pleas (lowering of fines or one-match suspension reduction), but removal of automatic good record provision;
- Brownlow Medal eligibility to be based around whether a player was suspended / not suspended for a match in any particular home and away season;
- Introduction of fines for low level offences, but with suspensions available to repeat third-offenders within a season;
- MRP retains the capacity to upgrade impact where there is the potential to cause injury.
The AFL also announced that Daniel Harford, Shane Wakelin and Paul Williams had joined the Tribunal jury as new members, as part of the rotation of members to sit on any cases taken to hearings through the season.
