Phil Walsh, the coach of Australian Rules football team Adelaide Crows, was stabbed to death and his son charged with his murder on Friday, sending shockwaves through the country's sporting community.

Police and ambulance crews were called to Walsh’s Adelaide home at 2 a.m. local time (1630 GMT) on Friday and found the 55-year-old coach had suffered multiple knife wounds after a dispute with his son.

Paramedics attempted to resuscitate Walsh but he was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

Walsh’s son Cy, 26, was charged with murder after being arrested at a friend’s house and detained for psychological assessment.

Police understood that the son lived with his parents. Walsh’s wife also suffered a “non-life threatening” leg injury in the incident and was taken to hospital.

Australian Rules football, the country’s high-contact indigenous sport, is hugely popular in the nation’s southern states.

Born in a country town in southern Victoria state, Walsh played 122 games for three elite football teams before moving into coaching in the 1990s.

He took over as head coach of the Crows during the off-season.

It was his first appointment as a head coach and he had been charged with whipping an underperforming team into shape.

Having played and coached in several Australian states, his death sent tremors across the country.

“Tragic day for Crows supporters and sport in general ... A tragedy that people in Adelaide woke up to this morning,” former Adelaide Crows chairman Bill Sanders told state radio ABC.

A self-described “hard arse” at training, Walsh was remembered as a father-figure to players and possessing of an easy sense of humour away from the game.

In an interview with a Melbourne newspaper earlier this year, he revealed his computer had a screensaver of a street in Peru where he was struck and almost killed by a bus in 2012.

“That’s my wake up call every day, as soon as I turn my computer on. Don’t get too angry, Phil,” he told the Herald Sun.

However, he admitted his dedication to his career had placed a strain on his family and he had been forced to make efforts to re-connect with his children.

The news of his death stunned the football-mad capital of South Australia state, where crowds of 50,000 regularly pack out the Adelaide Oval to watch the Crows, back-to-back champions in 1997-98.

The club said it was “devastated” by Walsh’s death.

The AFL cancelled their game against Geelong Cats on Sunday after talking to clubs and players. The teams will split the championship points.

“While playing footy can be part of the grieving process, we are strongly of the view that it is not fair to ask the young men of the Adelaide Crows or the Geelong Cats to play in these circumstances,” AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan told a news conference in Melbourne.