Melbourne local footy: EDFL club East Keilor cops ‘disgusting’ abuse

A suburban football coach has hit-out at a rival club after his players were subjected to personal abuse that threatened to spark a brawl on Saturday.

East Keilor coach Pat Christofi says his senior players were subjected to personal abuse on Saturday.. Picture: Steve Tanner

A suburban football club has been left seething after its senior players were subjected to “disgusting” abuse in an Essendon District Football League fixture on Saturday.

East Keilor coach Pat Christofi said the comments directed to his players during their clash with Sunbury Kangaroos were “on a different level” and threatened to spark a brawl.

Christofi said a group of Kangaroos’ reserves players hurled the remarks for about three quarters of the senior match at Eric Boardman Reserve.

Sunbury Kangaroos president Allan Walters confirmed his club was made aware of the incidents on Saturday night.

“We have identified who the players are and will take action as this is not behaviour the club will tolerate,” Walters said.

Christofi is in his second season as coach of the Cougars after leading them to the Division 1 grand final in 2019.

He was previously a reserves coach and senior assistant at Western Region league power Deer Park and said he had never experienced players confronting such personal abuse in his time in football.

“I’ve never heard of this stuff before, not like this,” Christofi said.

“There’s banter and then there’s a bit of a niggle, but this sort of stuff was beyond personal. It was way below the belt.

“It was stuff that you couldn’t really say, but it was repetitive and it went on for three quarters.”

Christofi said the field umpires unsuccessfully attempted to intervene during the match.

“Even the umpires had gone to them on several occasions trying to pull them up, and they wouldn’t (stop),” he said.

“That’s how bad it was and noticeable. It got really out of control and really personal.

“It was to the point where we had to console two of our players after the game because they were contemplating actually starting a riot. It was disgusting.”

Ladder-leader East Keilor powered to a 170-point victory, 31.17 (203) to 4.9 (33), to improve its record to 4-1.

Josh Grabowski and Dion Hill both booted six goals, while Chris Stewart contributed four.

Victor Micallef, Charles Van Der Byl and Marc Lock also impressed for the winners.

The Kangaroos crossed to the EDFL in 2019, claiming the Division 2 flag to earn promotion.

The EDFL said it was not aware of any incidents from the fixture.