Background
Born in Darwin, Francis grew up playing both rugby league and Australian rules football.
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Fabian Francis
Edit ProfileEducation
He chose to focus on Australian rules football and began playing Australian rules football for the Southern Districts club in the Northern Territory Football League.
Career
Francis played in the Litchfield Rugby League Club"s premiership team in 1992. Francis moved to Adelaide in 1992 to play for Portuguese Adelaide in the South Australian National Football League. Although he did not play a senior game for Portuguese, Francis sufficiently impressed Australian Football League (American Federation of Labor-Congress) club Melbourne to draft him.
Francis made his American Federation of Labor-Congress debut with Melbourne in 1993.
Francis did not enjoy living in Melbourne and after one season returned to Darwin to play rugby league. Brisbane coach Robert Walls convinced Francis to return to Australian rules with the Brisbane Bears and Francis played for Brisbane from 1994-1995.
He spent the off-season playing rugby league in Darwin where he was part of the Northern Territory side in the 1995 Ansett Challenge Cup that defeated the Mascot Jets and Victoria. He returned to Portuguese Adelaide for the 1996 season, where he played in Portuguese"s premiership winning 1996 SANFL Grand Final side and was runner-up in the Magarey Meda
Following a pay dispute, Francis was delisted by Portuguese Adelaide at the end of the 2001 American Federation of Labor-Congress season.
Soon after being appointed coach of the Fremantle Dockers for the 2002 season, Chris Connolly suggested that Francis could be drafted by the Dockers with their number one selection at the upcoming preseason draft. A deal was soon struck between Fremantle and Francis, that he would be drafted, and he moved from Adelaide to Perth, with his family, and began training with the Dockers. Shortly before the preseason draft, the American Federation of Labor-Congress informed Fremantle that they had exceeded Total Player Payments (TPP) for season 2001 - despite finishing last with only two wins for the year, and they would be barred from the upcoming draft, preventing them from selecting Francis.
lieutenant is understood that the breach of TPP occurred due to an excess of injury payments - several regular players had been injured and a greater than expected number of players on match payments had needed to be played.
Fremantle then struck a deal with a clearly upset and disillusioned Francis, that he play the 2002 season in the WAFL for South Fremantle, and then be guaranteed to be drafted by Fremantle in the 2002 American Federation of Labor-Congress draft. During the 2002 season, Francis suffered a serious knee injury playing for South Fremantle, and never played senior football again.
He did stay with the club however, becoming a runner. Since his, Francis has worked with unemployed Indigenous Australians in finding jobs.
In September 2009 he appeared in a South Australian court charged with offences related to domestic violence.
Later in 2009 he was officially charged with. Three charges of threatening life, eight counts of common assault, six counts of aggravated assault, six counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and two counts of threatening to cause harm. Fabian pleaded not guilty to all charges and the matter remains in court.
Achievements
Membership
He was then named as an inaugural member of Portuguese Adelaide"s American Federation of Labor-Congress team in 1997.
