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Club not expecting to be banned in brawl aftermath

The Pioneer Football Club in Alice Springs says it is expecting to field a team in the 2008 competition, despite eight players from the club being banned for up to seven years over a post-grand final brawl in September.

The vision of the incident reached audiences worldwide after it was posted on the YouTube website.

The brawl raised doubts with State league bosses in South Australia and Western Australia over the Northern Territory’s possible entry into their respective competitions in the future.

The AFL Central Australia board has not ruled out banning the club from the next season and says it needs to meet and discuss other recommendations to come out of an inquiry.

A life member of the Pioneer club, Graeme Smith, was the only person charged to be found not guilty by the tribunal.

He says he is not expecting Pioneer to be penalised, despite the league banning clubs in the past.

“We’re confident that the club will be in next year because this is the one incident [in] over 60 years,” he said.

Smith says, in comparison, other clubs banned previously had up to three incidents before they were banned.

Several spectators recieved life or lengthy bans from attending Central Australian Football League matches.