WEST COAST'S Adam Selwood flew to Melbourne last night to deny a slur against Fremantle forward Des Headland's six-year-old daughter in the fallout to a fiery derby that will continue tonight at the AFL Tribunal.

Eagles chief executive Trevor Nisbett said the furore could have been avoided if the AFL had used mediation between Selwood and Headland, similar to processes dealing with racial and religious vilification. He called on the AFL to implement new mediation laws to cover personal abuse.

Selwood was believed to be considering legal action against media outlets that had published Headland's allegations. West Coast football manager Steve Woodhouse said Selwood had told him his version of events, but the details would not be revealed until tonight's hearing.

Field umpire Stuart Wenn reportedly told AFL investigators he heard Headland tell Selwood that the tattoo on his left shoulder portrayed his daughter. But he will say in evidence that he could not clearly hear Selwood's alleged slur.

AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson told The Age last night that no other witnesses to the exchange had come forward.

It is believed Selwood will argue that he said he'd had sex with a woman who features in Headland's tattoo without realising it was his daughter, Madisan. He will deny Headland's allegation that he then called her a slut.

Headland will stay in Perth to contest the six-match suspension he faces after his attack on Selwood.

The Eagles are sensitive about personal abuse, given that they have been relentlessly verballed about the drug-related trauma that dogged the club during the pre-season.

"They (the AFL) could have had a better way of handling this issue. Our preferred position would have been for the two players to sit down with a mediator so they could resolve what was said and what wasn't said," Nisbett said.

"Then if they couldn't have sorted it out among themselves, they would have had to face the tribunal. Even if they had offered Adam a fine, he wouldn't have accepted it.

"(Mediation) certainly works with the other rules they have in place. It's a loophole in the system, but it's a loophole."

AFL spokesman Patrick Keane would not comment about a possible change to mediation rules until after the hearing.

But Sydney ruckman Peter Everitt, who settled a racial vilification complaint from Essendon's Michael Long by mediation in 1997, said the process would have been ideal in this case. "The best way to handle this would have been Selwood and Headland in a mediation kind of format," Everitt said on radio SEN. "It would have given Selwood the opportunity to realise what it meant by saying that and that's what happened when I had my racial vilification. I learnt a lot out of the process.

"You can go a little bit too far but like if he said it to me, I've got 13, seven and five-year-old daughters and it wouldn't have worried me at all — I would have laughed it off. But other people take it to heart and until you sit down with the person and they explain what it actually means and how hurt they are, you're never going to realise."

Nisbett described Selwood as a potential future leader. "Adam is one of the most outstanding young people we've had at our club for years. His record and his character are in question at the moment, but they shouldn't be."

With CAROLINE WILSON