How do appeals work?

A player or the AFL General Counsel can appeal a Tribunal decision to the Appeal Board on one or more of these grounds:

• an error of law that had a material impact on the decision;
• the decision was so unreasonable that no Tribunal acting reasonably could have reached it on the evidence;
• the classification of the offence was manifestly excessive or inadequate; or
• the sanction was manifestly excessive or inadequate.

Timetable:

• Notice of Appeal by 12pm (Melbourne time) on the next business day after the Tribunal decision, a deadline that must be strictly followed.
• The appellant's outline of submissions is due by 9am on the Thursday of the week of the decision, and the respondent's by 3pm that day.
• The Appeal Board hearing is at 5pm (Melbourne time) on that Thursday, subject to Board members being available, with oral submissions of no more than 45 minutes for each side.

Cost: $10,000, refundable if the appeal succeeds. If an appeal fails, $5,000 counts as the club's football department expenditure (soft cap).

The Appeal Board has a chairperson and two members, none of whom sat on the original Tribunal hearing. A party can also ask the Board for leave to produce fresh evidence if it could not, with reasonable diligence, have been obtained before the hearing ended and would probably have changed the result.

Source: 2026 AFL Tribunal Guidelines, section 2.1(e) and the Appeal Board summary.