AFL 360 and SEN host Gerard Whateley has hit out at reports that GWS star Toby Greene is treated unfairly by the AFL Tribunal and the Match Review Officer.
Greene was suspended for three weeks by the AFL Tribunal yesterday for a bump on umpire Matt Stevic in Saturday's Elimination Final win over Sydney.
The AFL pushed for a six-week ban for Greene's intentional umpire contact that was labelled "aggressive, demonstrative and disrespectful".
RELATED: Greene handed suspension for ump incident
Whateley voiced his thoughts on SEN on how the perceived 'Toby Tax' is anything but true and that he actually gets off lightly by the Tribunal in most cases.
"This idea that Toby Greene gets treated like nobody else does, that part of it is right in the absolute inverse," he exclaimed on SEN's Whateley.
"Karate kick (Luke) Dahlhaus to the face – that’s a fine, karate kick (Nic) Newman to the stomach – that’s nothing, not even sighted, claw the face of Marcus Bontempelli – get a sweetheart deal for a $7500 fine and then do it again the next week, that’s the only reason he got suspended because he did it again to Lachie Neale."
"He got a two-week suspension for an elbow to the throat which the Tribunal was happy to cut in half – gave him a 50 per cent discount which is actually what the ‘Toby Tax’ is – and this time around it was six weeks down to three on another 50 per cent discount - spare me the ‘Toby Tax’."
The veteran broadcaster claimed that although the idiom rolled off the tongue, there was little to no truth to it.
"It’s beautiful alliteration and it’s clever punditry – but it’s just not true. It holds up to no level of scrutiny whatsoever," Whateley continued.
"Toby Greene is the luckiest man in Tribunal history. Imagine David Rhys-Jones getting off on all of those (charges), he got nailed every single time. Toby doesn’t get nailed."
"‘The Toby Tax’, clever, really good punditry, great alliteration, everything that I like – but total nonsense."
AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan told reporters that the league will consider appealing Greene's ban and was personally perplexed by the length of the ban handed down by the Tribunal.
"If I’m honest, I find it personally hard to reconcile how it can be intentional conduct that was aggressive, demonstrative and disrespectful … and then only be three weeks," McLachlan said.
READ MORE: AFL set to contend length of Greene ban
"You know we asked for six, these are the facts. I’m finding that personally hard to reconcile how it can be only three weeks."
"As the CEO of the league, I’m saying to community leagues and others that I find that decision perplexing."
The GWS superstar will miss Friday night's semi-final against Geelong and should an AFL appeal prove successful, the 27-year-old could miss the first five weeks of the 2022 season.
