CHFL promise sanctions after incident mars preliminary final

An incident involving spectators at the end of a country footy final is being investigated by the competition.

The Central Highlands Football League says it will take full responsibility for crowd behaviour and potentially hand down sanctions following an incident on Sunday afternoon in the preliminary final between Hepburn and Springbank.

The league is investigating an alleged incident which occurred between spectators after the final siren.

Springbank won the game by six points after forward Zak Bozanich kicked a goal after the siren.

“The Central Highlands Football League acknowledges that an incident occurred between spectators at the conclusion of the senior grade preliminary final at Learmonth,” a statement said.

“The Central Highlands Football League has commenced working with each of the clubs, Hepburn and Springbank, to identify those involved in the incident and once this has occurred the CHFL board will consider sanctions which are able to be applied.

“The CHFL has a long history of taking responsibility on managing crowd behaviour at finals seriously and will continue to implement these responsibilities in this case.”

The CHFL has been contacted to further clarify what those penalties could look like and if Springbank’s position in the grand final this week, against Gordon, is in danger of being taken away from them.

Hepburn, in a statement, said it would work together with the CHFL to get to the bottom of it.

“We can‘t comment at this minute as we are still investigating the incident,” the club said.

“We are taking the incident very seriously and as a club we don’t condone violence in any manner.”

Springbank has also been contacted for comment.

More to come.