Osborne Park Football Club suspended for two years after Stephen Hawking costume controversy

A suburban Perth football club has been suspended from its league for two years after a "severe breach" of integrity standards, following an end-of-season costume stunt that left City of Stirling workers distressed.

Osborne Park Football Club will be unable to compete for two seasons, the Perth Football League announced today.

Players from the club held a "silly Sunday" celebration in August, with one player's costume depicting the late physicist Dr Hawking, who suffered from motor neuron disease and spent much of his life in a wheelchair.

City of Stirling Mayor Mark Irwin claimed the costume involved "a gaming chair set-up, with screens … with images photocopied depicting child pornography".

Mr Irwin said city staff attended the clubrooms, in Robinson Reserve in Tuart Hill, for an inspection the following day and were left upset after finding the costume.

WA Police investigated and found "no criminality", while the club said it was an "extremely embarrassing" moment.

Club president Jeremy LaBianca conceded the costume "had been offensive and incredibly distasteful costume", but said it featured pictures of the player himself and nobody else.

The league said incident had "exposed deep governance and leadership failures" at the club, which refused to disclose the identity of the player who created the costume.

"The PFL board met on Monday November 3 and determined that conduct at an end-of-season event at the club's rooms at Robinson Reserve breached a league by-law as being detrimental to the integrity of the league and bringing the game into disrepute," a statement said.

It said the club had been invited to provide a submission to the league but failed to do so.

"At a club-sanctioned event, offensive material was displayed depicting a doctored image of a child in a pornographic context," PFL boss Andrew Dawe said.

"Senior club officials were present but failed to act. The costume prop was later found by City of Stirling officers, prompting police attendance and the city terminating the club's agreement to use of the facilities."

Decision not taken lightly

The club has 14 days to appeal its suspension.

Mr Dawe said the suspension reflected the severity of the breach, and would give the club time to to rebuild governance capability" and "re-engage with the City of Stirling" before exploring the possibility of returning to the league.

He said the decision was not taken lightly, and that the league's board deliberated before settling on the penalty.

"Expulsion was explored but we're not in the business of getting rid of football clubs," he told ABC Radio Perth.

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"We decided that the two-year suspension was appropriate.

"However, there were a lot of conditions that were contingent upon that and a lot of that is to do with working with the club to rebuild their relationship with the City of Stirling and also to rebuild the failure of the governance of the club."

Mr Dawe said the costume incident was not an isolated issue involving the team.

"The City of Stirling had continued issues with leaders at that club," he said.

"At the end of the day a club has to uphold the standards of the community and unfortunately they haven't done so in this instance."

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