Australian rules football champion Carl Ditterich will fight allegations he sexually assaulted an underage girl in the 1980s.
Ditterich, 78, appeared at Melbourne Magistrates Court via video link on Friday after he was charged with three counts of indecent assault and one count of gross indecency.
The former ruckman, who played 285 games for St Kilda and Melbourne, is accused of assaulting an underage girl on August 27, 1985, after he had retired from the Victorian Football League.
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Ditterich remained quiet this morning as his lawyer Tony Hargreaves told the court there would be six witnesses cross-examined during a two-day committal hearing in September.
None of the witnesses were opposed by the prosecution.
Ditterich’s bail was extended to the September 17 hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court.
Ditterich, whose career spanned 17 years, was one of the most reported players in AFL/VFL history, appearing before the tribunal 19 times and being suspended for 30 matches.
He missed St Kilda’s only premiership in 1966 while serving a six-match ban.
The 78-year-old is a member of St Kilda’s team of the century and was also inducted in the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2004.
AFL chairman Richard Goyder said in April that the league would wait for Ditterich’s court proceedings to conclude before making a decision on his Hall of Fame status.
The AFL Commission stripped disgraced legend Barry Cable of his AFL Hall of Fame honours in 2023 after a judge found he sexually abused a Perth girl at the height of his playing career.
The North Melbourne (VFL), Perth and East Perth (both WAFL) premiership player had been upgraded to “legend” status in 2012.
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