2009 Brownlow Medal

The 2009 Brownlow Medal was the 82nd year the award was presented to the player adjudged the fairest and best player during the Australian Football League home-and-away season. Gary Ablett Jr of the Geelong Football Club won the medal by polling 30 votes during the 2009 AFL season.
Ablett won the award with thirty votes, eight votes ahead of 2004 medal winner, Chris Judd. It was Ablett's first Brownlow despite winning many other awards in the previous few years and being the Brownlow pre-count favourite for the previous three years. It was the second time in three years that a player from Geelong won the Brownlow Medal.

Leading vote-getters

	Player	Votes
1st	Gary Ablett, Jr.	30
2nd	Chris Judd	22
3rd	Lenny Hayes	20
=4th	Jonathan Brown Simon Black	19
=6th	Nick Dal Santo Adam Goodes	17
8th	Joel Selwood	16
=9th	Bryce Gibbs Marc Murphy Nick Riewoldt	15

Ablett's victory

Gary Ablett's victory in the 2009 medal followed his sixth-place finish in 2007 and his third-place finish in 2008. In all three years he was the favourite to win the award. Ablett polled in 13 matches, including eight best-on-ground performances. His seventh consecutive best-on-ground performance in round 20 confirmed his victory, as his 26-vote tally at this point was seven votes ahead of Judd, Brown and Hayes, who were all equal on 19 votes with only six votes left from the remaining two rounds. During his acceptance speech, Ablett referred to his father, Australian Football Hall of Fame member Gary Ablett Sr., who, despite being considered one of the best footballers players of all time, never won a Brownlow medal.

Voting procedure

The three field 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.

Ineligible players

As the medal is awarded to the fairest and best player in the league, those who have been suspended during the season by the AFL Tribunal are ineligible to win the award; however, they may still continue to poll votes. Sam Mitchell was the leading ineligible player after being found guilty of striking Adelaide's David Mackay. Chris Judd was suspended for an incident during the finals, but under the rules he remained eligible for both this year's and the 2010 medal, the latter of which he won.

Pre-count favourites

Gary Ablett started the year as the favourite to win the medal with both the bookmakers and in a poll of all 16 AFL captains. He remained as favourite throughout the year and entered the count as the leading contender for the third consecutive year. Other leading contenders included Dane Swan and St Kilda midfielders Leigh Montagna, Nick Dal Santo and Lenny Hayes.

Event

For the first time, the red carpet was change to a blue carpet, to celebrate the release of the new Toyota Prius. The carpet arrivals were hosted by Fifi Box and 's Brad Sewell.
The poor behaviour of full-forward and The Footy Show panellisy Brendan Fevola became a talking point of the event. Fevola was heavily intoxicated at the function, including while on camera, and he verbally abused and personally attacked guests, gave his opinion on Brownlow votes, knocked a bottle of beer out of the hand of 2008 Brownlow Medallist Adam Cooney, vomited and urinated on Casino fixtures, simulated sex acts, sexually harassed unsuspecting female guests and bystanders, sang a cappella on stage at the Brownlow afterparty, and fought with a Channel 7 journalist and Crown security staff before being removed from the complex by his teammates.
Fevola was fined $10,000 by the AFL for his actions: he was also fired from the Grand Final edition of The Footy Show and voluntarily withdrew from the Coleman Medallist's lap of honour at the 2009 AFL Grand Final.