Tara Murray
Kyneton has been penalised for multiple breaches of the player payment rule during last year’s Bendigo Football season.
AFL Central Victoria, which oversees the BFL, released a statement on Wednesday saying the commission had appointed a player payment disciplinary committee to hear charges laid against two clubs participating in the region.
The charges were in relation to the player payment rule.
This followed the commission reviewing reports on the two clubs prepared by a trained and accredited AFL Victoria integrity officer.
“The Player Payment Disciplinary Committee found both the Kyneton Football Netball Club (competing in the Bendigo Football Netball League) and the Koondrook Barham Football Netball
Club (competing in the Central Murray Football Netball League) guilty of multiple breaches of the player payment rule in season 2021,” the release said.
“Both clubs were found guilty of administration breaches and of breaching player payment rule 2(a)(i) by exceeding the maximum player payments allowed for that season.
“The two clubs both received fines, and investigation reviews will be conducted on their player payments for seasons 2022 and 2023.”
The integrity officer’s reports stated that both clubs and their officials were co-operative, transparent and open during the reviews.
The release said that it was also noted that in both cases these were honest mistakes.
Kyneton president Hayden Evans told Star Weekly that their fines were suspended.
He said that the player payments discrepancies came following the early end to the 2021 season due to COVID-19 forced changes to their player payments.
“What happened was we factored in an 18 game season, which was cut short with COVID,” he said.
“There are always going to be some issues with finances when that happens.”
AFL Central Victoria’s chief executive Craig Armstead confirmed both teams were fined with some of those fines suspended pending the outcome of further reviews of their allowable player payments.
He said the other fines are required to be paid by set dates.
