South Fremantle Penalised Over Total Player Payment BreachTuesday, March 14, 2023 - 11:40 AM

The West Australian Football Commission has announced that following an independent audit of the South Fremantle Football Club’s 2021 Total Player Payments (TPP), the club has been found to have breached the WAFL Rules and Regulations, exceeding the TPP cap.

The club breached Rule 5, which involved providing player payments which were not requested nor approved by the WAFC to be excluded from the TPP.

In handing down the penalty WAFC Chair, the Hon Wayne Martin AC KC explained the verdict.

“ The WAFC accepts that the breaches were not committed deliberately, in the sense that there was no conscious and wilful attempt to circumvent the TPP regime, however breaches of this nature provided the club with an advantage.

It’s extremely disappointing that our independent audit has uncovered these breaches which contravene the integrity of the competition and the work we do in ensuring the WAFL is fair and even.

The WAFC has a focussed strategy across football of displaying contemporary governance standards and we will continue to ensure this is at the forefront of our club’s strategies into the future to ensure incidents like this do not occur,” Martin said.

The WAFC has imposed the following penalties on the South Fremantle Football Club, which are in line with those developed and approved by the clubs in 2014 for breaches of the TPP.

• Loss of 8 Premiership points for the 2023 season
• Fines to the amount of the $25,000
• A reduction in the TPP for season 2023 of $10,525
• A reduction of 10 Player Points for the 2023 season.

South Fremantle Football Club has accepted the penalty.