Five banned for Wollongong United and Olympic Illawarra Premier League grand final qualifier

The suspensions come from an altercation which occurred after full-time when the rivals last met in the season, but were only handed down after a hearing this week.

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The game, which was played last month at Olympic's home ground PCYC, was a fiery affair which ended in a 1-0 win to the hosts thanks to a Jake Trew goal mid-way through the first half.

Post-match, the Mercury witnessed tensions boil over, resulting in an intense altercation involving the majority of both teams.

As a result, Football South Coast's tribunal handed bans to two United players and two Olympic players.

United's Mason Versi and James Stojanovski and Olympics' Brendan Low and Joey Lavalle were all given four week suspensions, but three of those are suspended, meaning they will only miss Sunday's clash.

In a further blow to United, defender Rene Vescio will also miss the Olympic clash due to his red card he was given in the side's last game of the season against Cringila.

It is understood United will appeal the decision to FSC.

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Olympic coach Matt Bailey said that while it was disappointing to be missing two key players for the match against United, he remained focussed on the task at hand.

"For me as the head coach it's about minimising disruption [in the team]," he said.

"Whether that's this [incident] or whether that's the pressure and the focus of the finals series.

"The fact that we've got a really strong and competitive squad means that it's not ideal for us but we will deal with it this weekend.

"Both boys [Low and Lavalle] are a massive part of our group and we'll support them as we need to so it's just one of those things that when you want to win championships and win games you have to lean on your resilience and I think this is just another example of that," Bailey said.

United coach Billy Tsovolos and president Peter Vrtkovski declined to comment, but the Mercury understands there had been discussion of forfeiting the finals series or even refusing to accept the grand final trophy if they were to win, in response to the suspensions and the timing of them.

The drama comes at the business end of what has been a stunning season for Wollongong United, who made the Australia Cup round of 32 and won the league, after the structure was remodelled to a top eight and points-per-game system, due to the impact of wet weather this season.

On Thursday FSC announced a re-jig of the finals fixtures due to the on-going rain which has made grass fields unplayable this weekend.

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All Premier and District League finals will be held at the sole synthetic field in the region, Ian McLennan Park in a re-structured format.

Ian McLennan Park has held a number of games across men's and women's competitions throughout 2022 due to the on-going rain which has heavily disrupted all sports in the Illawarra.

The United vs Olympic game will be held at 1:15pm whilst the elimination final between Bulli and Cringila will be played at 3:30pm.

District League games will be held on Saturday.

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