CROWD BEHAVIOUR EDICT: AFL BIFFING FOR FOOTY BRAWLERS

THE AFL has declared violent troublemakers are not welcome, but it is adamant the poor actions of a few should not ruin football for the majority.

Police investigations continue into the brawl at Geelong’s home stadium on Saturday night in the moments after the Cats’ two-point win over the Melbourne Demons.

Footage has emerged on Kardinia Park’s standing-only terrace section of Geelong and Melbourne fans appearing to verbally attack each other before the confrontation turned violent.

A man in Geelong colours was seen stomping on a man being held on the ground. A Demons supporter also ap- peared to hit his head on the concrete after being thrown to the ground by another man.

The vision shows venue security only arrived and intervened in the brawl after members of the crowd had separated the brawling fans.

League head of clubs Travis Auld said yesterday the incident was “clearly unacceptable” but segregating fans or monitoring service of alcohol at games was not necessarily the answer.

“We have almost seven million supporters attend our games each year. There’s a couple — a very small number — that are trying to ruin it for everyone else. Those people need to be held accountable.”

Auld said service of alcohol was something that would be considered “generally” but he added the majority of fans were not the issue. “I don’t think it’s so much the issue generally, maybe in these circumstances alcohol was involved, but it doesn’t mean that we should be looking at it and ruining it for everyone else.”

Auld said security at games was provided by each venue but the league’s security team worked closely with the companies involved when it came to how many were deployed and in which areas.

He did concede that in such tight affairs, especially when games were decided after the siren, as was the case on Saturday night, “perhaps the security guys could have worked a bit differently in terms of what areas they focused on”.