Skipper out for match after arrest
Thomas Arup | March 24, 2008
RICHMOND captain Kane Johnson last night banned himself for one match after he was arrested yesterday morning for urinating outside the St Kilda Road police complex.
Johnson will miss the match against North Melbourne, which was to have been his 100th for the club, on Sunday at the MCG.
Johnson admitted to his own "stupidity" and volunteered to sit out Sunday's match as his penalty. The club accepted that decision and will also fine him $5000.
The club announced the penalty last night, in a statement in which Johnson said: "I deeply regret my actions. I am disappointed that I have let the club, our supporters, and my teammates down.
"As captain I have preached a message that I failed to uphold, fronting my teammates at the next training session will be the most difficult time I have faced in football."
Johnson was arrested at 2am yesterday when police observed him urinating outside the St Kilda Road police station. He had been celebrating his 30th birthday and was alone when arrested.
Teammate Nathan Brown said the incident was disappointing, for Johnson and the club.
"It is going to be a tough week for Kane Johnson because he is captain of the football club and he has worked so hard off the field in the last two or three years to present himself as an impeccable person who does everything right," Brown said on radio Triple M.
"The coaches and the board … all know how hard he is working on that. And it's just disappointing. It is probably an error of judgement, probably not the greatest place to take a leak."
Richmond director of football operations Greg Miller said last night: "Kane's behaviour, while disappointing, was completely out of character and an aberration."
Johnson's coach at his previous club Adelaide, Gary Ayres, last night defended his former player. Ayres told The Age that he had known Johnson to be professional and he should be judged on his entire career. "In my time at Adelaide, he was touted as a future leader by the group," Ayres said.
"I never had any issues with Kane, and the club at the time was very, very keen to keep him in Adelaide because they knew how much of a star player he was and how big a contributor he was to the Adelaide Football Club.
"You have to look at Kane overall, the job he has been doing, however many years he has been captain at Richmond. So you would have to look at it in those situations there rather than identifying one particular thing that has happened."
Richmond confirmed yesterday that Johnson was charged with being drunk in a public place and a further charge of offensive behaviour was pending.
Johnson's home is situated next to the St Kilda Road police complex.
The Johnson incident comes only a week after Carlton fined Brendan Fevola $10,000 and stood him down from its leadership group for urinating on the window of a Melbourne nightclub.
Fevola was not suspended by the club, but was warned by the Blues that he would be sacked if another off-field incident occurred.
Johnson, unlike Fevola, has a squeaky clean off-field reputation. Commentator Robert Walls, who wrote last week that he thought Fevola would be unable to avoid off-field controversy and thus have to leave Carlton, said he was surprised to hear about Johnson.
http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/tiger-in-a-wee-spot-of-bother/2008/03/23/1206206928474.html
