The 2022 Brownlow Medal was the 95th year the award is presented to the player adjudged the

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

player during the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL) home-and-away season. It was won by

Carlton Carlton may refer to: People * Carlton (name), a list of those with the given name or surname * Carlton (singer), English soul singer Carlton McCarthy * Carlton, a pen name used by Joseph Caldwell (1773–1835), American educator, Presbyterian ...

midfielder

Patrick Cripps Patrick Cripps (born 18 March 1995) is a professional Australian rules footballer playing for the Carlton Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Cripps won the Leigh Matthews Trophy in 2019 and the Brownlow Medal in 2022, and ...

. The 2022 Brownlow Medal count was originally scheduled for Monday 19 September, its traditional date on the Monday before the grand final. It was rescheduled to Sunday 18 September at a week's notice, to avoid a clash with the

funeral of Elizabeth II On 8 September 2022, at 15:10 BST, Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms, and the longest-reigning British monarch, died of old age at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, at the age of 96. The Queen's death ...

. The event returned to its conventional format and venue—a gala dinner at the

Crown Palladium Crown Melbourne (also referred to as Crown Casino and Entertainment Complex) is a casino and resort located on the south bank of the Yarra River, in Melbourne, Australia. Crown Casino is a unit of Crown Limited, and the first casino of the ...

in Melbourne—after having been held virtually for the previous two seasons due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Cripps' win was not without controversy. Cripps was initially suspended by the Match Review Panel and AFL Tribunal in Round 21, for rough conduct in an front-on contest against '

Callum Ah Chee Callum Ah Chee (born 9 October 1997) is an Australian rules footballer who plays for the Brisbane Lions in the Australian Football League (AFL). Early life Ah Chee was born in Derby, Western Australia, Australia. His mother is Indigenous A ...

, which ruled him ineligible and would have seen him miss the final rounds, in which he polled the winning votes; Carlton had appealed the suspension to the AFL Appeals Board and was successful in overturning it. Carlton became the first team since

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

to win the Coleman and Brownlow and not play

finals Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to: Geography Australia * Western Australia *Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia * West Coast, Tasmania **West Coast Range, mountain range in the region Canada * Britis ...

, which finished 17th with a 2-20 record, polled only 15 votes across all of its players combined, the lowest ever tally for any club under the 3–2–1 voting system in a season of any length.

Leading vote-getters

Voting procedure

The three field

umpires An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...

(those umpires who control the flow of the game, as opposed to goal or boundary umpires) confer after each match and award three votes, two votes, and one vote to the players they regard as the best, second-best and third-best in the match, respectively. The votes are kept secret until the awards night, and they are read and tallied on the evening.

Allegations of illegal betting

Several raids and arrests, including of second year field umpire Michael Pell, were made in November 2022 after suspicious betting patterns into spot bets on the votes from many games Pell had umpired were investigated by sports corruption police. As of 15 December, investigations were ongoing and no charges have been formally laid, and Pell was no longer employed by the AFL.

References

2022 Australian Football League season

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

{{AFL-stub