No stress over security

Cats unfazed by spate of bad behaviour

KARDINIA Park Trust chief executive Gerard Griffin says security won’t be beefed up for Geelong’s home game against the Crows next Friday.

Griffin said it would be “business as usual”, having not received any memos from the AFL to enhance security presence in the wake of isolated anti-social incidents across the league.

Marvel Stadium, which uses AIG Security, increased its security presence at Saturday night’s match between Carlton and the Western Bulldogs, with Marvel Stadium chief executive Michael Green later admitting on 3AW they “took it too far”.

But Griffin said GMHBA Stadium would employ security guard numbers appropriate to the crowd size and level of risk, no different to any other game at the venue.

GMHBA Stadium outsources MA Security for its policing needs.

“It’ll be very much business as usual for us down here,” Griffin said.

“We haven’t received any special edicts or memos from the AFL to ramp up or do anything drastically different to the way it’s been for quite some time.

“Before an event, you’re always assessing your deployments — and that’s not just for security, that’s with everything — and you review things coming out of games.

“I’m not expecting anything different before the next game, other than the standard approach we’d adopt for a game of that size and risk profile for a game of footy here.”

Griffin encouraged fans to continue to support their teams passionately.

“Continue to be passionate and barrack hard, but always be mindful of your behaviour and be considerate of people sitting alongside you,” he said.

Griffin said the No.1 focus of venue security was to stop violent physical behaviour.

MEANWHILE, former Victorian Premier and Hawthorn club president Jeff Kennett is in hot water over claims security guards can’t police AFL crowds appropriately because they’re “new arrivals” to this country.

Kennett’s outspoken comments have further escalated the public angst over a series of heavy-handed security interactions at AFL matches where fans have been kicked out of venues.

A Carlton supporter claims he was kicked out of a game in Round 12 for calling an umpire a “baldheaded flog”.

The AFL then announced the individual has been served with a warning, but no further action will be taken.

The league has also issued a statement to announce it has not in any way attempted to clamp down on fan behaviour — despite a series of reports surrounding increased security presence and increased policing of what fans say from their seats during AFL matches in recent weeks.

Kennett said yesterday that security services used in Melbourne at the MCG and Marvel Stadium are further destabilising the situation by not being aware of what constitutes crossing the line of acceptable fan behaviour.

He said security guards don’t know how to properly oversee footy fans because they are “new arrivals”.

“I’m not being racist when I say this, but when I saw some of the footage, the people who are making judgments while they wear these authoritative coats, are not people who appear to have a great knowledge of our game,” he told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell. “And yet they make judgments about what’s correct and not correct.”

When challenged about making assumptions about the ancestral origins of stadium staff members, Kennett admitted they may not be “new arrivals” at all.