The Lance Collard case did not end the career of the player who was found to have made a homophobic slur for the second time, but it did end the tenure of the appeal board chairman whose reasoning for reducing the ban stunned the AFL.
It is rare to find agreement within AFL circles on tribunal and appeal board findings. The reaction to Will Houghton’s reasoning – as distinct from his generous verdict that cut Collard’s suspension – was one of those blue moons within the footy universe.
No one – certainly no one at club, AFL level or within socially literate player ranks – concurred with the reasoning of the now former appeals board chairman and noted King’s Counsel.
For those who didn’t read the incendiary section of his judgement, he said: “It is commonplace that players can employ language from time to time which is racist, sexist or homophobic whilst on the field”.
One did not need to be an activist within the LGBTQ communities to be dumbfounded. The AFL Players’ Association, headed by AFLPA president and Collingwood skipper Darcy Moore, made plain that they did not agree. As did the AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon, who has made the eradication of homophobia from the game a priority for his administration.
In a process that was tortured, drawn out and did not benefit any parties, possibly exempting Collard, the dismissal of Houghton by the AFL was a brief moment of decisive clarity.
Long-time gay community activist Tony Keenan, who has closely followed the embarrassing Collard case and previous suspensions for homophobia by AFL-listed players, observed of the Collard case: “The worst aspect of the whole saga is the comments by the appeals board (chairman). They set back years of progress and did more damage than whatever Collard said.”
Whatever Collard said was contested, unfortunately. The accusation that he had used the f-word – highly offensive to the gay community – was vigorously fought, with lawyers at 20 paces, in part because of fears that the nine-week ban imposed (with two weeks suspended) could end the player’s career. The AFL had asked for a 10-week ban, on the grounds that this was the player’s second offence. Collard’s penalty was reduced from nine weeks to four weeks (with two games suspended).
The AFL was captive to a stated policy of escalating penalties for homophobic slurs. This had happened during 2024, when after Jeremy Finlayson successfully pleaded down to a three-week ban for the first instance of using the slur “f—-t”, CEO Dillon said that the penalty for such a slur would increase for the next offenders.
Dillon and the AFL’s goal of wiping homophobia from the sport, starting, as the fight against racism did in the 1990s, on the field, was commendable.
But the notion that increasing the penalty – Gold Coast’s Wil Powell received a five-match ban, and Collard later copped a six-week ban for his first offence in the VFL – would help the cause was questionable, at best. Nor was it necessarily just – consider that Collard’s first suspension was the same number as that handed to Taylor Walker, a former captain of the Crows and highly visible star, for a racist slur against a SANFL player.
One problem with escalating the length of suspensions for first offences is that the penalty must be greater for the second crime. In the Collard case, this meant that the AFL was seeking a hefty ban for a player whose challenging background as a young Indigenous man was aired in the appeals hearing.
But the major problem caused by the AFL’s decision to ramp up the (first offence) penalty for homophobia was that it raised the stakes for the individuals in the dock and for their clubs.
Izak Rankine’s homophobic comments to Isaac Quaynor late in the 2025 season, thus, turned into a media/legal and lobbying circus, as the Crows – keen to gain the best outcome for their most electrifying player – pushed hard to minimise Rankine’s suspension. Their measured chairman John Olsen, the ex-SA premier, called then AFL chairman Richard Goyder to sway the league on Rankine; ultimately, the penalty was set at four, rather than five matches, still enough to end his season.
Had the AFL not adopted the escalation policy – and merely assessed each case on its merits, or set the typical suspension for a homophobic slur at either three or four matches for a first offence, it is unlikely that the Rankine or Collard cases would have turned into unedifying legal and media cage matches.
The goal of wiping out homophobia from the sport is just. The question for the game and its custodians is how best to achieve this ambition, in a way that causes the least distress to the parties involved.
It is evident – as Moore and others have observed – that these incidents reflect a shift in culture among AFL players, who are more willing to highlight and report homophobia on the field than in years past.
The Rankine and Collard circuses demonstrated that if the punitive consequences reach a certain level, the player and his club will resist and lawyer-up. This is not in the interests of the code, nor of the LGBTQ community.
One difference with homophobic and racial incidents within the AFL is that the player who cops the abuse does not necessarily have the group identity, ie, the player’s sexual preference is usually unknown (and should remain so, if he wishes it so).
The victim for homophobic slurs is the LGBTQ communities. Unlike the racial cases of the 1990s, there is no individual with whom to hold a mediation session. Back then, the mediation between the likes of Michael Long and Damian Monkhorst made an enormous difference.
The AFL needs to consult those who are most impacted by homophobia in devising their punitive measures and education programs.
What they do not need are cases that move quickly from the field to the domain of barristers chambers, and remain there for weeks.
AFL Appeals Board judgment
The Appeal Board is required to deal with every case before it on its own facts and circumstances. In this case, Collard suffered a sanction of nine weeks, which was cumulative to the two-week suspension he had already suffered for a strike to an opposing player in the same game.
Two weeks of that penalty was suspended. The Tribunal had regard to a number of matters in coming to that decision. There had been a number of previous decisions which suggested a range of penalties for players using the term f*****t, which was between three and six weeks.
However, in none of those prior decisions did the Tribunal have any role, because the AFL and the player had come to an agreement. There was also reliance placed by the tribunal upon a prior conviction of Collard in 2024 when he received a six week sanction using the term f*****t a number of times during the course of the game to several opposing players, and that he was warned about using that term.
Again, it was an agreed sanction between the AFL and the player. That conduct though was clearly in a worse category than the present incident, where the phrase was said once to two players who recollected.
We observe that football is a hard game. It is highly competitive, particularly at its higher levels. It is commonplace that players can employ language from time to time which is racist, sexist or homophobic whilst on the field.
We observe that it’s to the credit of the AFL and the Tribunal that its efforts to eliminate these comments appear to be succeeding.
However, that cannot be at the price of imposing what this board considers to be a crippling penalty on the appellant of this case. We describe it as crippling because there was evidence before the Tribunal in the sanction in both hearings that a penalty of this extent would finish him off as a player of professional football.
We note the following in regard to Collard. First, his previous misconduct in 2024 was more serious, and probably far more serious than the present offence. Secondly, his age. He’s a young man and he’s indigenous.
Thirdly, his difficult background, of which evidence was led.
Fourthly, the fact that the recipient of the remark, Hipwell, was not offended by the comment. Fifth, he had at that time struck an opposing player, given away a free kick and had been jostled, roughed up and verbally challenged by a number of his opponents.
We’ve also had regard to the fact of general and specific deterrence in coming to our own view on the penalty.
Ultimately, the Appeal Board has come to the view that the sanction imposed on player Collard by the Tribunal was manifestly excessive.
In lieu thereof, we would impose a sanction of four weeks, with two weeks suspended for the remainder of this VFL/AFL season and the 2027 VFL/AFL season, cumulative to Collard’s two-week suspension for striking.
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Jake Niall is a Walkley award-winning sports journalist and chief AFL writer for The Age.Connect via X or email.
