AFL chief Gillon McLachlan has vowed a relentless pursuit of racists as coaches and players ponder how best to combat the vilification.
The AFL’s inaugural Gather Round opens on Thursday night against a grim backdrop of racial abuse of players.
The league’s integrity unit is this week investigating separate incidents involving three clubs, Adelaide, Fremantle and Brisbane.
The unit’s fresh probes come just two weeks after the racial vilification of Western Bulldog Jamarra Ugle-Hagan.
And the fresh racial abuse comes amid an independent investigation into alleged historic racism at Hawthorn.
The Hawthorn allegations, initially aired last September, involve former Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson and his then-assistant Chris Fagan, now head coach of Brisbane.
“I certainly feel it has gone a long time and I think that has been difficult for everyone involved, complainants and the defendants,” McLachlan said of the Hawthorn investigation.
McLachlan said he was almost lost for words when this week’s fresh cases of racial abuse were detailed.
Adelaide’s Izak Rankine reported being racially abused on social media on Monday and, the next day, Fremantle’s Michael Walters and Nathan Wilson, and Brisbane’s Charlie Cameron, reported similar vilification.
“The set of words I have, I am just sick of saying them,” McLachlan said on Wednesday.
“It has got no place in our game, it has got no place in our community – it’s frankly just a disgrace, it’s abhorrent.
“It causes so much hurt to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, frankly I think it offends 99.99 per cent of all football followers, all Australians.
“I am out of words.
“We are taking the action we can. We work hard to track them down but we know they disappear.”
Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir put heat on owners of social media companies to play their part in stopping the abuse.
“I’m not across how we can stop it but social media companies need to take some ownership on this sort of stuff as well,” Longmuir said.
“It’s not good enough. Our Indigenous players shouldn’t have to open up their phones and read that.”
Port Adelaide defender Aliir Aliir, who was born in Kenya, condemned the latest racial abuse.
Born in Kenya, Aliir said he had also been a past victim of race-based vilification and questioned the best approach to halt the vilification.
“The whole competition, we want to get rid of it,” Aliir said.
“But us just saying it, it’s not just going to happen.
“Honestly … I try to get my head around it, what ways can we do it?
“If someone cops it, do we stop putting it on social media because some of them might get a kick of us reposting whatever it is they said?
“I’m not sure what is the best way for us to get rid of it.”
© AAP 2023
