Michael Braun (born 24 March 1978) is an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er who played for the

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

West Coast Eagles The West Coast Eagles are a professional Australian rules football club based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded in 1986 as one of two expansion teams in the Australian Football League (AFL), then known as the Victorian Football ...

. Playing for Echuca United as a youngster in the Northern and Echuca Football League, he was recruited from

Echuca Echuca ( ) is a town on the banks of the Murray River and Campaspe River in Victoria, Australia. The border town of Moama is adjacent on the northern side of the Murray River in New South Wales. Echuca is the administrative centre and largest s ...

Bendigo Pioneers The Bendigo Pioneers is an Australian rules football team in the statewide Victorian under-18s league, the NAB League. Synopsis The Bendigo Pioneers is an Australian rules football team playing in NAB League since 1993 based in Bendigo, Victoria ...

and made his debut in 1997. Braun announced his AFL retirement midway through the

2008 AFL season The 2008 AFL season was the 112th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured si ...

, effective at the end of the season. After retiring from playing football he became the Colts' coach at

East Perth Football Club The East Perth Football Club, nicknamed the Royals, is an Australian rules football club based in Leederville, Western Australia, current playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL). Formed in 1902 as the Union Football Club, the club ...

in the WAFL.

Honours

* Runner-up in the Bendigo Pioneers best and fairest in 1996, and represented Victoria Country in the championships. * Runner-up in the club champion award 1999 * Best Clubman in 2003 * Member of the

International Rules International rules football ( ga, Peil na rialacha idirnáisiunta; also known as international rules in Australia and compromise rules or Aussie rules in Ireland) is a team sport consisting of a hybrid of football codes, which was developed ...

team in 2004 * Member of the West Coast Eagles 2006 premiership team

Controversies

In 2007, Braun ended his acceptance speech for the

Ross Glendinning Medal Ross or ROSS may refer to: People * Clan Ross, a Highland Scottish clan * Ross (name), including a list of people with the surname or given name Ross, as well as the meaning * Earl of Ross, a peerage of Scotland Places * RoSS, the Republic of Sout ...

with "Let's have a fucking good year" on live television and in front of a crowd of 42,000 at Subiaco Oval. The Eagles originally fined him $500, but the AFL stepped in, severely reprimanded the Eagles and fined him a further $5,000 for the blunder. It was also the same match in which teammate Adam Selwood was involved in an altercation with Fremantle's

Des Headland Desmond Edmond Headland, Jr (born 21 January 1981) is an Australian rules footballer currently playing for Subiaco in the West Australian Football League, and a conservative political candidate. He plays as a half-forward flanker or midfield ...

. Later that year, then-Western Bulldogs player

Jason Akermanis Jason Dean Akermanis (born 24 February 1977) is a former professional Australian rules football player who played in the Australian Football League (AFL). He is a Brownlow Medallist and triple premiership player who played for the Brisbane Bea ...

wrote a column about performance-enhancing drugs and his views on their presence in sport, which included comments that he believed a specific opposing player, whom he did not name, had been using the drugs based on how strong a runner the player was for his size. The

Seven Network The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, and is one of ...

and

Fairfax Media Fairfax Media was a media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased ''The Sydney Morning Herald' ...

named Braun as the player in question, damaging his reputation and subjecting him to an investigation by the

Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) was a government statutory authority tasked to protect Australia's sporting integrity through the elimination of doping. The authority was part of the Department of Health's portfolio and was ...

, which cleared him of wrongdoing. Braun was ultimately awarded defamation damages against Seven and Fairfax, and received an apology from Akermanis, who conceded that he had been referring to Braun, and admitted that he had been wrong.

Statistics

: , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 38 , , 7 , , 1 , , 0 , , 61 , , 33 , , 94 , , 19 , , 15 , , 0.1 , , 0.0 , , 8.7 , , 4.7 , , 13.4 , , 2.7 , , 2.1 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 20 , , 14 , , 10 , , 201 , , 101 , , 302 , , 65 , , 41 , , 0.7 , , 0.5 , , 10.1 , , 5.1 , , 15.1 , , 3.3 , , 2.1 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 24 , , 4 , , 10 , , 287 , , 167 , , 454 , , 104 , , 30 , , 0.2 , , 0.4 , , 12.0 , , 7.0 , , 18.9 , , 4.3 , , 1.3 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 12 , , 6 , , 4 , , 124 , , 89 , , 213 , , 55 , , 19 , , 0.5 , , 0.3 , , 10.3 , , 7.4 , , 17.8 , , 4.6 , , 1.6 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 9 , , 3 , , 1 , , 69 , , 39 , , 108 , , 32 , , 17 , , 0.3 , , 0.1 , , 7.7 , , 4.3 , , 12.0 , , 3.6 , , 1.9 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 20 , , 4 , , 3 , , 185 , , 86 , , 271 , , 61 , , 51 , , 0.2 , , 0.2 , , 9.3 , , 4.3 , , 13.6 , , 3.1 , , 2.6 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 22 , , 4 , , 6 , , 225 , , 127 , , 352 , , 78 , , 53 , , 0.2 , , 0.3 , , 10.2 , , 5.8 , , 16.0 , , 3.5 , , 2.4 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 23 , , 9 , , 9 , , 259 , , 172 , , 431 , , 119 , , 71 , , 0.4 , , 0.4 , , 11.3 , , 7.5 , , 18.7 , , 5.2 , , 3.1 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 24 , , 7 , , 5 , , 274 , , 222 , , 496 , , 127 , , 48 , , 0.3 , , 0.2 , , 11.4 , , 9.3 , , 20.7 , , 5.3 , , 2.0 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 25 , , 4 , , 8 , , 248 , , 256 , , 504 , , 110 , , 73 , , 0.2 , , 0.3 , , 9.9 , , 10.2 , , 20.2 , , 4.4 , , 2.9 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 24 , , 6 , , 6 , , 227 , , 287 , , 514 , , 93 , , 68 , , 0.2 , , 0.1 , , 8.2 , , 10.6 , , 18.7 , , 3.6 , , 2.9 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 10 , , 18 , , 4 , , 1 , , 147 , , 190 , , 337 , , 65 , , 53 , , 0.2 , , 0.1 , , 8.2 , , 10.6 , , 18.7 , , 3.6 , , 2.9 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 228 ! 66 ! 63 ! 2307 ! 1769 ! 4076 ! 928 ! 539 ! 0.3 ! 0.3 ! 10.1 ! 7.8 ! 17.9 ! 4.1 ! 2.4

Outside football

Michael married his long-time girlfriend Bree in November 2007 and they have a son called Noah born in October 2008. They now also have a girl called Logan. Braun can also be found regularly reviewing West Australian restaurants for a local website.Michael Braun Visits Riverbank Estate – Eatingwa Articles

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Braun, Michael 1978 births Australian rules footballers from Victoria (state) Living people West Coast Eagles players West Coast Eagles Premiership players People from Echuca Bendigo Pioneers players Australia international rules football team players Subiaco Football Club players East Perth Football Club players One-time VFL/AFL Premiership players