Steve Price: The only Finlayson the wider public should be talking about right now is Kellie
The over-reaction to Jeremy Finlayson’s sledge is yet another episode of virtue signalling from the AFL, criticising a young man whose family is in the middle of a cancer battle.
Opinion
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The only Finlayson the wider public should be talking about right now is Kellie Finlayson, who is battling stage four colon cancer.
Instead, the usual suspects and a lot of people who should know better are losing their minds over a spur-of-the-moment sledge on a football field last weekend.
Kellie’s husband Jeremy Finlayson who plays for Port Adelaide, sledged an unnamed – important detail – Essendon player in the third quarter of their 69-point drubbing during Gather Round. The comment from Jeremy was picked up on an umpire’s microphone and it has been reported some Essendon players heard him call a teammate a f----t. Jeremy immediately realised his mistake, told his coaches at the break and apologised to the player at the end of the game.
Common sense says that should have been the end of the matter. Problem is it’s 2024 and the world doesn’t work that way any more, especially in the precious world of the AFL.
After five days of deliberation — who knows why it took so long — Jeremy was rubbed out for three games and ordered to pay for something called a Pride in Sport education course. Yet another episode of virtue signalling from a sporting body determined to insert itself into any social issue it can.
Now before I dig myself any deeper into this pile-on of a young man whose family is in the middle of a cancer battle, can I be clear that name calling on a sporting field – it used to be called sledging – can be very nasty.
Racial abuse at AFL level, if players are to be believed, has been largely eliminated. I doubt it has been drummed out of all levels of competition, but it would be rare. Finlayson didn’t racially abuse anyone but what he spat out has been described as a homophobic slur. The definition of homophobia is someone who fears, hates or feels discomfort or, mistrust of people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual.
Do the pile-on crowd seriously think that’s what Jeremy Finlayson is – homophobic?
Clearly not. He simply let the pressure of the moment cause a brain fade where from the recess of his vocabulary he sledged someone with the f word.
Cue the outrage brigade, led of course by the footballing mafia in the media calling for him to be banned, fined and shamed. As he now has been. Headlines screamed for the AFL to send a message and the AFL called in the integrity police unit to investigate.
These media types are the same people, by the way, who regularly report on the mental pressures on footballers in this social media age and lecture people to ease up on them! We even had a former rugby league player and gay rights campaigner, Ian Roberts, make the ludicrous demand that Jeremy be forced to apologise to the “entire Australian queer community”.
You must ask what exactly the integrity unit was investigating. I mean seriously, a 28-year-old footballer spat out a sledge he immediately regretted and apologised for. That should have been the end of it but instead we saw World War III, with Port Adelaide president David Koch dragged into the drama and comparisons made with an earlier transgression from veteran coach Alastair Clarkson.
Clarkson was fined $20,000 last month and handed a suspended two match ban for abusing a St Kilda player after one of his youngsters was ironed out. Clarkson called Jimmy Webster a c--- sucker and that comment was labelled homophobic. Is anyone seriously suggesting that’s what Clarkson had in his mind when he said that? Ridiculous!
Koch – one of the most experienced media performers in Australia – went on ABC TV the morning after the Finlayson incident and was questioned by Caroline Wilson and Kellie Underwood and not surprisingly, and sensibly, made the case that the comment was made in the heat of the battle and argued that the Clarkson fine was probably a fair one.
David was then described by some in the media as being blokey, a nudge presumably at his age. Old white blokes like David and I of course are not supposed to have a view on the precious world we have become when it comes to debates like this, but I’ve known Koch forever and he’s not a blokey type and never has been.
Of course, the AFL couldn’t help themselves and even before their integrity unit completed an unnecessary investigation, new AFL head of football Laura Kane and AFL CEO Andrew Dillon stressed that the AFL did not tolerate homophobic vilification. Talk about pre-judging their own investigation.
Kane not only seemed to convict Finlayson, on the AFL website she went on to say: “This is not something we want to hear on the field, off the field, or in fact in society, and we take all vilification matters incredibly seriously.”
The AFL again stepping out of running a football competition and inserting themselves in a debate about what is acceptable or not acceptable in wider society.
Again, I stress Jeremy and his family are watching while his brave young wife battles stage 4 colon cancer, a battle she is fighting with determination and grit knowing what’s the likely outcome. Finlayson wouldn’t, I am sure, use that as an excuse for what he said but the bloke apologised and admitted his error immediately.
The workplace can be a brutal place sometimes where workmates in a moment of frustration and anger say things they later regret. Who hasn’t suffered a verbal sledge or angry verbal slap in their working lifetime. It doesn’t make it right, but it also doesn’t make the perpetrator automatically a homophobe.
Not that long ago I was regularly referred to in a trashy suburban newspaper as the “poisoned dwarf”. Mainstream papers – not this one – picked up on the insult and regularly attached it to articles written about me and I couldn’t have cared less. Former PM Kevin Rudd called me a “gutless coward” as I wrote recently but I just shrugged and wondered why he even cared enough to insult me.
Being old, short and white I’m fair game and after all they are only words and I’d be certain if that umpire’s mic hadn’t picked up the f word, we would never have even heard about Jeremy’s brain fade.
Good luck to Kellie and her fight to live a few more years with her young family as she battles something far more important, cancer. Now that’s a word you don’t want to ever hear!
Likes / dislikes of the week
Dislikes
– Indigenous push to exempt themselves from paying all land taxes while negotiating a Victorian treaty.
– Premier Jacinta Allan still refusing to confirm a second drug injecting rooms location or release a secret report.
– Crazy on-line site revealing addresses of vacant houses for squatters to occupy.
– Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s divisive push for a Palestinian State in the middle of the Gaza war.
Likes
– Alice Springs young people curfew extended by six days – should be permanent.
– Interviewing and chatting to music legend Chris Isaak this week in town performing at various venues.
– History and spectacle of the Masters golf at Augusta Georgia and the Australian contingent.
– News mediation talks underway to re-ignite the $10 billion airport rail link project – just build the thing
Originally published as Steve Price: The only Finlayson the wider public should be talking about right now is Kellie
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