{"id":4524,"date":"2026-05-04T12:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/4524\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T12:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:03:09","slug":"brisbane-lions-player-koby-evans-under-investigation-for-alleged-homophobic-slur-in-vfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/4524\/","title":{"rendered":"Brisbane Lions player Koby Evans under investigation for alleged homophobic slur in VFL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The AFL is investigating a Brisbane Lions player for allegedly using a homophobic slur against an opposing player in the VFL.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The Lions were playing against Coburg in the VFL on the weekend when the incident occurred.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Koby Evans was taken by Brisbane with pick 38 in last year&#8217;s AFL draft. He is yet to make his AFL debut.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Evans is under investigation for allegedly using a homophobic slur against a Coburg player during the match. The AFL said late on Monday that the incident had been referred to its Integrity Unit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The Lions said Evans had apologised and expressed remorse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The club is aware of the incident and has been working with Coburg and the AFL on it,&#8221; a Lions spokesman said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The club has confirmed the player has apologised multiple times \u2014 on field and again post-match.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The player is extremely remorseful and takes full responsibility.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The club is disappointed the incident has occurred while supporting and educating the player.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The incident follows a series of AFL players being suspended for making homophobic comments in games in the AFL and VFL.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-04-24\/afl-andrew-dillon-rejects-collard-appeal-board-chair-comments\/106603490\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AFL boss responds to appeal board drama<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Both the AFL and the AFL Players&#8217; Association hit back at suggestions from the appeals board that slurs are commonplace among players in the sport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">St Kilda&#8217;s Lance Collard was at the centre of a controversial recent case. Collard was suspended by the AFL Tribunal for nine weeks, with two weeks suspended, for making a homophobic slur against an opponent in a game against Frankston in the VFL.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">On appeal, it was reduced to four weeks, with two weeks suspended.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The AFL sacked Appeals Board chair Will Houghton KC after the board in its reasons found the penalty excessive, saying that football was a &#8220;highly competitive&#8221; game, and that it was &#8220;commonplace that players can employ language from time to time which is racist, sexist or homophobic whilst on the field&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The AFL said it considered the Collard case to be concluded, but strongly rejected the Appeal Board&#8217;s suggestion, saying stronger action was not only warranted but necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AFL is investigating a Brisbane Lions player for allegedly using a homophobic slur against an opposing player&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5800,99,408,5799,5798,4838,5797,5796,261,5795],"class_list":{"0":"post-4524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brisbane","8":"tag-apology","9":"tag-brisbane","10":"tag-brisbane-lions","11":"tag-coburg","12":"tag-homophobic-slur","13":"tag-investigation","14":"tag-koby-evans","15":"tag-player","16":"tag-sport","17":"tag-vfl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}