A sports law expert has questioned whether Victoria Police would charge an AFL player if he acted the same way as Ali Fahour.

Fahour - who resigned this week as AFL diversity manager - has been charged with assault for an on-field incident in the Northern Football League last weekend in which he allegedly hit Whittlesea's Dale Saddington while playing for West Preston Lakeside.

Fahour was on Wednesday night suspended for 14 matches by the NFL, taking him over the threshold of games suspended to incur a life ban. He subsequently resigned from his AFL post.

The incident followed strikes in the AFL by Richmond's Bachar Houli and Melbourne's Tomas Bugg, which earned four and six-match suspensions respectively. Both of those incidents led to concussion for the victim.

While Fahour's indiscretion differed from the other two, in that Fahour ran from down the field to launch at Saddington, Monash University senior lecturer Eric Windholz has queried whether the police would act if Fahour had done what he did on an AFL field.

"Under our criminal law, there is no exception for sport," Windholz, who lectures in sports law, said.

"I am by no means saying the police need to intervene in each and every instance that occurs on the sporting field, but I think we need to understand the process they go through and the criteria they apply.

"I think we are at risk of some people perceiving that the AFL is above the law. And I think that would be a very regrettable situation."

While charges for on-field incidents have happened from time to time at suburban and country football level, only once has an incident in a VFL/AFL game drawn a criminal charge, in 1985, when Hawthorn champion Leigh Matthews was charged following a behind-play hit on Geelong's Neville Bruns.

Windholz suggested that the Fahour hit was demonstrably different to the Bugg and Houli strikes, but said it was important that the public had faith in the police not to differentiate between the local and elite levels

"The police may have taken a very different view as to the intention of the perpetrators," he said.

"My personal view is that when I look at the video of Ali Fahour I think it is discernibly different to the other two. Fahour runs in, he scouts the pack, picks his target and goes for it.

I think in the past people were entitled to think suburban leagues were much more 'Wild West' than the AFL. But the suburban leagues have done a tremendous job cleaning up their act

"It seems to be much more premeditated than the other two. And that might in and of itself be a very valid distinction. All I'm suggesting is we deserve the conversation.

"The police will often look at the governing body, the disciplinary process, and if they think that process is sufficiently robust, the penalties are there and it's being applied properly they will often defer to that sporting organisation and respect its autonomy to run its own affairs. I think in the past people were entitled to think suburban leagues were much more 'Wild West' than the AFL. But the suburban leagues have done a tremendous job cleaning up their act."