There are growing calls for the Melbourne Football Club to face financial penalties due to a lack of transparency surrounding the condition of injured swingman Harrison Petty. During last Sunday's clash with the Brisbane Lions, concerning scenes unfolded when Petty became unsteady on his feet and, at one point, had to use the ground for support before trainers assisted him off the field.
Petty's teammate Daniel Turner later described the incident as "scary", and the club pledged to investigate whether a delayed concussion was responsible for the worrying moment. However, five days after the incident, Melbourne has not included Petty on their official injury list and has provided no further updates. When announcing the team for Friday night's clash with Richmond, the club simply stated: "Jiath replaces Harrison Petty, who will miss through injury."
As a result, the AFL's official injury list describes Petty's injury as "TBC" and his estimated return as also "TBC". Channel 7's AFL expert Kane Cornes expressed his disbelief on SEN, saying: "I cannot believe this. The Harrison Petty situation last week was really concerning. He kicked the footy, and then I didn't know what had happened to him. It was really alarming."
Cornes added: "We don't have any update, zero update in nearly a week. When it first happened, they thought it may have been a delayed concussion. So he's out of the side this week and we don't know why. There's zero transparency as to what is happening with Harrison Petty. AFL.com.au reports Melbourne says the injury is TBC, estimated return TBC. You can't make that up."
Cornes believes the "TBC" indicates the exact nature of the injury is still unclear, but he finds the lack of transparency unacceptable. "They must be (unsure), but give us a little bit more than TBC five days after the injury happened. You're telling me they have zero information to provide the game and Melbourne supporters than TBC with an estimated return of TBC?" he said.
"I've been hot on this for a long time. I'm not going to let it go when clubs take the absolute 'you know what' out of injury reports when they're supposed to be giving real-time information consistently. This should be an absolute fine for the Melbourne Football Club. Now I love my Demons this year, I'm a paid-up member, but this isn't going to cut it. I've been consistent with all clubs. That's not good enough to have that as TBC. It's really alarming that could happen to a player on the field and we've got no knowledge of what has led to those pretty confronting scenes with Harrison Petty trying to regather his feet after that turnover. So in the gun is Melbourne and their ridiculous injury report."
While Petty's name was not listed on Melbourne's official injury table, the club's football performance boss Alan Richardson mentioned the player in an article. "Harrison left the field during the third quarter of our clash with the Lions. We're currently gathering further information and once it comes to hand, we will provide an update," Richardson said.
In May 2025, 7NEWS chief AFL reporter Mitch Cleary revealed that the league had put pressure on clubs regarding injury transparency. "The AFL has issued a sternly worded memo to clubs to remind them of their requirements to provide up-to-date and transparent injury lists," Cleary reported last year. "Let's see if it has any impact in what clubs release by the 5pm deadline this afternoon," he added.
AFL clubs are notorious for their secrecy around injuries, which has long been a bugbear for industry insiders and fans. Many fail to understand why there aren't stricter rules and serious fines for clubs that provide inaccurate or misleading injury information about their players.
