Statement attributed to AFLPA CEO, Paul Marsh:

The AFL Players’ Association notes the AFL sanction handed to Willie Rioli as well as him and Port Adelaide accepting that sanction, including that Willie had withdrawn himself from playing this weekend.

This is a sensitive issue that has highlighted a few things for us:

Now that this issue has been dealt with, our industry should not lose sight of the fact that there are people in the middle of this that now need our support and the AFLPA will play our role in doing this.

The industry remains without an effective framework for consistently dealing with disciplinary issues and the resolution of this should be a high priority.

Players make mistakes from time to time and they are held accountable for these in ways that are very public.