AFL Players’ Association boss Paul Marsh says players remain united in their fight on trolls — and want your help

AFL players have vowed to continue their war on trolls following a sickening online taunt of Hawthorn star and cancer survivor Jarryd Roughead, and are calling on the public to join the wave of reporting of unacceptable comments.

The AFL community has rallied around Jarryd Roughead. Picture: Getty Images

AFL players have vowed to continue their war on trolls following a sickening online taunt of Hawthorn star and cancer survivor Jarryd Roughead.

The Hawks and Carlton joined forces on Monday to condemn a “toxic” Facebook comment about the former skipper, who has twice battled and beaten melanoma.

AFL Players’ Association boss Paul Marsh said a concerted push to call out trolls was made at February’s Indigenous Player Summit, with players united against vilification and “disgraceful personal attacks” such as that on Roughead.

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He said the players were calling on the public to join the wave of reporting of unacceptable comments.

“It’s not just about racism, this. There’s been discriminatory messages, homophobic messages over time, there’s just nasty rumours that get thrown around that are unsubstantiated, and then you get this disgusting comment about Jarryd Roughead,” Marsh said.

“They all sit in the same boat from where we’re concerned. They’re just disgraceful personal attacks, and we’ve made a decision that we’re not going to walk past this stuff.

Former Hawthorn skipper Jarryd Roughead was subjected to a cruel social media taunt in relation to his recent cancer battle. Picture: Getty Images

“We’ve been calling it out and what we’ve seen is the industry is doing the same thing.

“Clubs are doing it, the AFL’s doing it, we’re investigating with the AFL Integrity Department.

“We’ve been able to identify a few of the people — nowhere near all of them.

“Most pleasingly, what we’re seeing is the public sentiment on this is very strongly against this sort of behaviour.

“What we’ve seen since we started calling it out is a number of members of the public are now tweeting to us … bringing issues of this nature to our attention so we can call it out.”

Hawthorn moved swiftly on Monday, labelling the comments — which the Facebook user later claimed were the result of an account hack or were “photoshopped” — “completely unacceptable”.

“No person should ever be subjected to taunts, especially about issues as personal as this,” Hawks chief executive Justin Reeves said.

“As a club we are fully behind all of our players and will continue to make a stand against this toxic behaviour in our game.”

Carlton said the user was not a club member, but that it had passed information onto the AFL integrity unit following the “disgusting” comment.

The AFL community has rallied around Jarryd Roughead. Picture: Getty Images

Prior to this year, Marsh said the player involved would be contacted and asked whether they wanted to call out the individual responsible.

Many — including stars of the competition — had previously chosen not to take further action.

But after the recent Indigenous Player Summit — held in Adelaide in February — a collective rally was issued for players to band together and republish and condemn the trolls, with the movement now sweeping the entire playing fraternity.

Marsh conceded that while there is “a school of thought that says ‘don’t feed the trolls’” and that there was “no definitive answer” on the benefits, it had been considered deeply.

And it was determined that to call out would be to educate, with fans encouraged to do so.

“It feels as though there is a real wave of support for the players and strong feelings against those that are making these disgusting comments on social media,” he said.

Paul Marsh wants all football lovers to join in calling out and educating trolls. Picture: Getty Images

“From our perspective it’s about supporting the players and them knowing that they’ve got us and others behind them, which I think is important when these attacks are of such a personal nature.

“We’re not going to walk past this sort of behaviour anymore. We’re taking it as an opportunity to support the players, but also to broadly educate.

“There’s a role for people out there — if they know who these people are on social media making these comments, then they should join with us in calling it out and reporting the behaviour to us or the AFL. We’re seeing a bit of that now.”

Originally published as AFL Players’ Association boss Paul Marsh says players remain united in their fight on trolls — and want your help