The bizarre umpire contact case involving Carlton's Adam Cerra at the AFL Tribunal has seen the Blues win out by a meagre $125.
Cerra was asked to front the AFL's judiciary after being cited umpire contact on the fourth occasion within the past two years during the loss to Brisbane last weekend.
The AFL wanted Cerra to receive a $6,250 fine for the incident to 'send a message' to the game's players about the seriousness of making careless umpire contact.
However, the Blues were adamant Cerra should just be fined the prescribed amount of $5000 for making careless contact with an umpire on a third or subsequent offence.
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In the end the AFL Tribunal decided to fine Cerra $5500, which was $125 less than the halfway point of $5625 between the two sought-after fine amounts.
Jeff Gleeson, the AFL Tribunal chair, said the hearing provided "very clear notice to players that players who repeatedly commit the offence of careless contact with an umpire will not necessarily benefit from an incrementally increased fine, or indeed that a fine will always be the appropriate sanction."
Cerra's representation Elizabeth Bateman said: "To penalise Cerra for the fact that there’ve been a lot of umpire contact incidents this year would be unfair. It would be punishing him for events that he has absolutely no control over."
She continued: "The early plea process is to incentivise a player to save the Tribunal’s time and resources by not contesting an offence ... through the reduction in the fine amount.
"But now, in this context at a later point in time, that regime in essence is being used against a player to now bring him before the Tribunal with no real recourse to appeal."
Cerra will be available for Carlton in their Saturday night MCG clash with Melbourne and it will be interesting to see whether he changes his approach around umpires at stoppages.