AFL umpire sacked for ‘frogmarching’ jogger fails to win back job
Veteran umpires coach Frank Kalayzich has lost his unfair dismissal claim against the AFL.
Veteran umpires coach Frank Kalayzich has lost his unfair dismissal claim against the Australian Football League after the Fair Work Commission found he engaged in “violent and abusive behaviour” towards a member of the public running laps on a Sydney oval during an umpire training session.
Mr Kalayzich, inducted into the NSW Australian Football Hall of Fame after umpiring more than 500 Sydney games, was sacked by the AFL as an elite umpires’ coach after he physically clashed with the jogger, wrestling, manhandling and frogmarching him to an exit gate.
The April 8 incident, captured on CCTV, occurred after Mr Kalayzich told the jogger, referred to as “Mr CS” during proceedings, that the North Sydney oval had been booked for a closed training session for the AFL umpires and he needed to leave.
Mr CS refused, saying he had been running for half an hour, and only had a few more laps of the oval to complete.
The CCTV footage shows Mr CS attempting to resume running, with Mr Kalayzich continually blocking him, moving from side to side when Mr CS tried to run around him. This continued for about 2½ minutes, leading to increasing levels of frustration for both men.
Mr Kalayzich, 62, said the clash then escalated when Mr CS grabbed Mr Kalayzich’s shoulder, a moment that was obscured in the CCTV footage.
While Mr Kalayzich described his next action as walking Mr CS off the field, the commission ruled he was “wrestling, manhandling and frogmarching Mr CS towards a gate”.
At one stage Mr Kalayzich let go of Mr CS’s shirt, pushed him backwards and “shaped up”, with his fists partially raised. He dragged and pushed Mr CS about 40m, before two nearby AFL workers, Will Abbott and Tyler Hollingworth, came across to the men.
Mr Abbott told the commission: “I heard Frank call the man ‘retarded’ and told him to ‘piss off out of the ground’ and ‘I told you to f..king leave’. I can’t remember if the member of the public swore at him, but I do recall that Frank was using bad language.”
Mr Kalayzich later denied asking if Mr CS was retarded.
Mr Abbott said he moved to step in between the two men. “Frank is about 6ft 4 and was a lot taller than the other man. I felt that Frank was towering over the man and trying to intimidate the man with his height. He was standing very close to him, foot-to-foot almost. It was a bit of a squeeze for me to get in between.”
Mr Hollingworth and Mr Abbott escorted Mr CS off the field and chatted to him for about five to 10 minutes, apologising for Mr Kalayzich’s behaviour and stating that it did not reflect the values of the AFL.
Mr CS asked how to access the AFL integrity portal on his phone, filled in the details of the incident and asked Mr Hollingworth and Mr Abbott for their names and emails.
Following an investigation, Mr Kalayzich’s employment was terminated and he lodged an unfair dismissal claim, alleging the sacking was harsh, unfair and unjust given his extensive service to the game of AFL, the lack of comparative justice compared to the treatment of others under the AFL’s auspices, and the importance of the security of AFL umpires.
He claimed the AFL’s actions were especially harsh when considering its disciplinary response to other individuals, particularly Noah Balta, a Richmond player who assaulted a man in a public carpark in December 2024 by pushing him over before punching him multiple times.
Former AFL umpire “Razor” Ray Chamberlain gave evidence that included a written statement about the “disproportionality of (the) AFL response compared to Noah Balta’s sanction”.
Mr Chamberlain described Mr Kalayzich as “iconic and a mainstay in the NSW and ACT umpiring environment”.
The commission said Mr Chamberlain said he had seen the CCTV footage, and stated “somewhat extraordinarily bearing in mind what the CCTV footage discloses”: “There is a level of physicality that was involved, that is clear. However, ultimately nothing looked unreasonably excessive. No one got punched, kicked, struck, thrown to the ground or pushed against a fence. I would not describe it as being violent.”
Stephen McBurney, the AFL head of officiating, told the commission that Balta was not an AFL employee, and his incident occurred outside of his employment, and not while he was performing his duties as an AFL player.
The commission found Balta was “not an appropriate point of comparison”.
“Mr McBurney’s evidence, which I accept, was that if any of the (AFL’s) employees or umpires engaged in similar conduct to that which Mr Balta was reported to have engaged in, then the inevitable result would be termination of employment,” it said.
In a written response to the AFL, Mr Kalayzich said while he believed he acted with the intent of maintaining a safe environment “for both the umpires and the integrity of the venue”, he acknowledged that he “overreacted to provocation”, that he should have exercised greater restraint and would approach the situation differently if presented with it again.
The commission found Mr Kalayzich’s conduct constituted a breach of the code of conduct. “(His) conduct involved violent and abusive behaviour (both physical and verbal) which necessarily presented risk, including the risk of the respondent being exposed to potential claims arising from his conduct. I find that the applicant’s conduct provided a valid reason for dismissal, and justified dismissal. Dismissal was a proportionate response to the conduct in question.”
