AFL boss confirms banned Sydney players blocked from attending Brownlow night but still eligible for award

AFL boss Andrew Dillon has confirmed the five suspended Sydney Swans players will not be invited to Brownlow Medal night.

But the quintet will remain eligible for the award, with Isaac Heeney in particular a chance to poll highly come next month’s gala in Melbourne.

Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, Riley Bice and James Jordon were last week banned for the rest of the season by Sydney for breaching club standards.

The AFL supported the decision and later confirmed the players would be ineligible for the All Australian squad and team.

Heeney was likely to make the team while Warner and Blakey would have been in the mix to join him.

The five players will continue to poll votes in the Brownlow count and remain eligible, with only on-field suspensions ruling players out of the running for the best and fairest award.

“The invitations to the Brownlow will be going out this week,” Dillon said on Monday.

Heeney has attended multiple Brownlow nights in Melbourne and finished equal fourth on 28 votes in 2024 before collecting 17 last year.

Warner was on hand last year as he topped the Swans’ count in 2025 with 21 votes.

Dillon’s press conference at the AFL finals launch on Monday was his first public appearance since the scandal broke last Monday.

Declaring respect for women is not negotiable, the CEO started his speech with a strongly worded statement expanding on an AFL memo last Tuesday night.

“I have been asked a lot in recent days, what message football should be sending young people and what we should be saying to our kids,” Dillon said.

“For me, the answer is straightforward — it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter what you do, whether you’re an AFL footballer — the way we treat women says a lot about who we are as people, as a community and as a game.

Dillon added everyone involved in the game had an extraordinary platform and a responsibility to set the right example.