AFL fines Port Adelaide over concussion protocols breach after Aliir Aliir and Lachie Jones head clash

Port Adelaide has been fined $100,000 over its handling of a head knock to defender Aliir Aliir last Saturday.

Aliir was allowed to play out the game against the Adelaide Crows, after violently clashing heads with teammate Lachie Jones.

Jones was subbed out of the game with a migraine but Aliir did not undertake a SCAT5 concussion test, which is a standardised tool for evaluating potential concussions.

“In this instance, Port Adelaide admitted that Aliir should have undergone SCAT5 testing at the time immediately following the collision on Saturday night,” AFL general counsel Stephen Meade said.

By not undertaking the test, and Aliir returning to the game without being subject to that further detailed assessment, Aliir’s wellbeing was potentially at increased risk.”

Both Jones and Aliir have now entered concussion protocols and will miss Port Adelaide’s clash with Geelong on Saturday night.

The AFL said Port initially backed its management of the players but has since accepted it made an error of judgement.

In a statement, Port said it accepted the penalty.

Port Adelaide’s general manager of football, Chris Davies, said the club understands protecting brain health for players was “paramount”.

“As we said publicly earlier in the week, we accept we made a significant mistake in not following the concussion guidelines appropriately,” he said.

“Our club doctor owned the mistake and publicly acknowledged his error.”

Mr Davies said club doctor, Mark Fisher, believed he should have immediately conducted the SCAT5 test on Aliir “upon reflection on Sunday morning”.

“He’s mentioned that if he had his time again he would make a different decision in the heat of the moment, and I think we need to accept that,” he said.

Mr Davies said the club was “100 per cent supportive” of Dr Fisher.

“He is an eminently qualified doctor who we have great faith in, who in this circumstance has had an error of judgement,” he said.

Half of the $100,000 fine will come from the club’s football department soft cap, which limits the amount of money clubs can spend in off-field areas such as player development managers and psychologists, as well as wellbeing programs.

The remaining $50,000 will be paid for outside of the cap, unless the club commits a similar concussion breach before the end of the 2024 season.

“It obviously means it’s $50,000 that we can’t spend on anything else in our program so there’s no doubt that any fine that ends up in your soft cap has an impact, what that ultimately means I can’t define right now but it will have a significant effect,” Mr Davies said.

Lawyer Greg Griffin, whose firm has a class action that will be heard in a Victorian court against the AFL for concussion-related injuries, described the fine as “completely paltry”.

“We’re looking at a club that has a turnover of $57 million,” he said.

“So $100,000 is 0.22 of its revenues.”

Mr Griffin said the fine does not “send a message to the rest of the league that this nonsense must stop”.

“They should have lost points and they should have also lost draft picks, because that would have stopped every football club in the competition from ever allowing this to happen again,” he said.