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AFL doubles ‘good bloke’ Bachar Houli’s penalty to four weeks

Bachar Houli will miss four weeks after the AFL appealed and doubled the tribunal’s initial suspension.

The Richmond defender was sent straight to the tribunal on Tuesday night for a shot that knocked out Carlton’s Jed Lamb.

The match review panel said it was intentional conduct with high impact to the head, which the panel’s guidelines say is worth a four-week ban, but Houli got away with a two-week suspension.

The “manifestly inadequate” ban prompted the AFL to appeal the sanction, with the league’s general manager of football operations even going so far as to say Thursday’s appeal hearing was not a referendum on Houli as a person.

“This appeal is based on the AFL’s view in relation to the sanction imposed and not a judgement on the character evidence or the character of Bachar Houli in general,” Simon Lethlean said.

Houli’s representatives on Tuesday night mounted what was described as a “good bloke” defence by match review panel member Nathan Burke.

Michael Tovey had used public comments by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and gold Logie winner Waleed Aly as evidence of Houli’s good character.

During the appeal hearing, the AFL argued Houli’s undeniably stellar off-field conduct was irrelevant in assessing on-field indiscretions, saying it could set a dangerous precedent.

Mr Tovey, of course, argued the opposite, saying the appeals board should only be concerned with upholding the rules that are currently in place.

“Whether this is going to open the floodgates or not really is not a matter which should be concerning this board,” he said.

The AFL’s legal counsel, Andrew Woods, also suggested that even if character was taken into account, it should have only served to keep the ban at four weeks rather than reduce it to two.

He added Tuesday’s jury did not take into account the match review panel’s table for determining sanctions as they should have.

Mr Tovey said on Thursday that the league’s representatives raised no objection to the use of the comments from Mr Turnbull or Mr Aly, nor to the tribunal chairman’s direction to Tuesday’s jury that they could take Houli’s character into account.

But appeals board chairman Peter O’Callaghan said the comments from the famous pair were not relevant to an on-field ruling.

-ABC

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