Neale remains banned for the grand final against Fremantle after failing to argue his way out of a one-match suspension for a gut punch on Hawthorn's Jack Ginnivan.
"The Brisbane Lions confirm the club will appeal the tribunal's decision ... the club will make no further comment while the matter remains ongoing," the Lions said in a statement on Wednesday.
To succeed at an appeals board hearing expected on Thursday, Brisbane will have to prove the tribunal finding was either an error of law, an unreasonable decision, a manifestly excessive classification, or a manifestly excessive sanction.
The tribunal on Tuesday night found Neale guilty of striking.
Then at the end of a sensational four-and-a-half hour hearing, tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson KC and his fellow members, former players Darren Gaspar and Scott Stevens, decided not to enact the 'exceptional and compelling clause' to allow Neale to avoid suspension.
Why? For many reasons, according to Gleeson.
There was Neale's evidence, which Gleeson rejected as "inconsistent".
Neale insisted he didn't strike Ginnivan during last Saturday night's preliminary final.
The only video footage of the incident was long-range and, when enhanced, remained grainy - regardless of how many times it was played frame-by-painstaking-frame.
"It was more a bump or body-check," the dual Brownlow medallist said, adding Ginnivan "might have taken a bit of a dive to get a free kick".
The tribunal didn't buy it.
"We have listened carefully to Mr Neale's evidence but we find it was inconsistent in key respects with what we saw on the video," Gleeson said.
"And to that extent we do not accept it."
Neale maintained his shoulder and chest made contact with Ginnivan; the tribunal found it was "a forceful blow delivered with a swinging arm and an open hand".
That's the guilty part.
Now, for what Gleeson said was "the more difficult issue".
Was using the exceptional and compelling circumstances clause justified to downgrade Neale's penalty from a ban to a fine?
Introduced this year, the clause had been deployed once: to downgrade a one-game ban to Collingwood legend and the AFL's games record holder Scott Pendlebury, to a fine.
Neale wanted it applied to him.
But, as Gleeson noted, Pendlebury was charged with rough conduct. Specifically, graded as careless conduct, medium impact, and high contact.
Neale was charged with striking graded as intentional conduct, medium impact and body contact.
Gleeson narrowed on the difference between conduct gradings - Pendlebury's careless; Neale's intentional.
Then, there was Neale's record, which his barrister - the AFL's former football operations boss, Adrian Anderson - compared to Pendlebury.
Until March, the Pies great had never fronted the tribunal or been suspended in his 21-year career.
Until Tuesday night, Neale had never been banned in a 15-year career including two Brownlow medals, six club champion awards, and captaining the Lions to two premierships.
But as the AFL's counsel Andrew Woods KC pointed out, Neale had previously been found guilty of offences eight times - three of them, for striking the body of opponents. But he'd never been suspended.
The tribunal chair also noted the purpose of the AFL's so-called gut-punch law, also introduced this year, was "to stamp out this very sort of conduct".
"Neale ignored it and he knew the consequences," Gleeson said.
"Being of Neale's outstanding record does not render a one-match suspension for that act inappropriate or unreasonable."
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