AFL great Carl Ditterich has been charged with child sex offences. -AAP Image
Australian rules football great Carl Ditterich has been charged with historic child sex offences.
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The former ruckman, who played 285 games for St Kilda and Melbourne from 1963 to 1980, has been charged with three counts of indecent assault and one count of gross indecency.
Bayside Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team laid the charges against the 78-year-old Moama man following an investigation into alleged historic child sex offences.
The alleged incidents relate to one victim and took place at Heatherton, in Melbourne's southeast, in 1985, police said in a statement.
The matter was heard in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday and is due back in court in late June.
Ditterich was renowned as a hard man and one of the most reported players in AFL/VFL history, suspended for 30 matches across his career.
He unsuccessfully stood as an independent candidate for the Victorian state seat of Swan Hill in 1999.
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