Port Adelaide jet Karl Amon backs Eddie Betts over comments on AFL racism
Port Adelaide jet Karl Amon says it has been tough to watch Eddie Betts pour his heart out and revealed the toll of continued racist abuse on all Indigenous players.
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Port Adelaide star Karl Amon says he agrees with Eddie Betts that AFL football is not a safe workplace for Indigenous players.
Amon, a member of the AFL Players Association’s Indigenous Advisory Committee, said the past two weeks had been tough following the Taylor Walker racism ban.
He said watching Betts again pour out his soul on the devastating impacts of racism during a Fox Footy interview “touched the heart” and showed why Indigenous players were getting sick of dealing with continued abuse.
“It’s been pretty challenging, to be honest (the last two weeks),” Amon said.
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Amon and Port Adelaide’s six other Indigenous players, along with Aliir Aliir and Martin Frederick, joined the Crows’ four Indigenous players and North Adelaide’s Robbie Young for dinner last week to support each other.
Amon said the Indigenous playing cohort had had enough.
“I think just education is the main thing and the competition lately has been really good at calling stuff out. As a playing group, we are sick of it,” he said.
“I think just the amount of times that Eddie has to front the media, it’s 2021 and it is still happening, so he is sick of it
“The sooner that we can bring an end to this the better.”
Amon said the constant instances of players being targeted with racist comments online were having a draining impact on all Indigenous players.
“The more this happens, the more it builds up inside of yourself,” he said.
“You see other players that cop it constantly, I’m not sure whether it was last week or the weekend before and we had three incidents in the same weekend.
“You’ve got a friendship with these players and it is really tough to see.
“I think we cop it together and unfortunately for Eddie he is sort of the face of the response, and the sooner we can educate more people and move on from this and really call out what happens future indigenous boys will be more comfortable coming into the system.”
When announcing his retirement from the game on Tuesday, Betts said he felt that AFL football was still not a safe place for Indigenous players.
Amon agreed.
“Certainly I think young kids coming through may not feel safe and they may feel if this happens to me, how am I going to react,” he said.
“What Eddie touched on is how I feel and as senior Indigenous players if we can change this around and make the young kids feel more comfortable it is a big step in the right direction.”
AFLPA chief executive Paul Marsh said the industry needed to seize on this moment and quickly make significant improvements on behalf of Indigenous players.
“They are tired of being the ones that are continually dealing with these issues,” Marsh said.
“The challenge for the rest of the industry is to take these issues up on behalf of our Indigenous players and people within our community.”
Marsh said the PA had raised concerns with the AFL about the under-representation of Indigenous staff and officials in the industry.
“I think if you have a look at the industry Indigenous staff are under-represented in all areas of our industry, we need to continue to work to address that,” he said.
“For some time we have flagged our concerns with the AFL about the lack of Indigenous liaison officers at the clubs and that has been further impacted by soft cap cuts last year and we will continue to push that.
“We need to all look at the situation we are in now and put the right steps in place to create a positive environment for our Indigenous and multicultural players, and we need to stamp out racism. I think the whole industry has a role to play in this and we are a part of that.”
AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan said last week that the league would make alterations to the soft cap that allows for more Indigenous representation at clubs.
Roos urge ex-player to say sorry
— Jay Clark
North Melbourne has condemned a former player for making racist comments on social media in response to a post from former Magpie and Demon Heritier Lumumba.
The Kangaroos on Monday night said a player who was rookie listed in 2012 and delisted in 2014 without playing a senior game will have their past player’s association membership revoked.
The former player’s post, which was highly offensive, has since been deleted.
North Melbourne chief executive Ben Amarfio had urged the player, who News Corp has chosen not to name, to apologise to Lumumba.
Amarfio said the club would continue to make a stand against all racism.
“While our club is not responsible for a former listed player’s disgraceful remarks, I nonetheless expressed our unreserved apology to Heritier,” Amarfio said.
“Racism is divisive and hurtful and we must strive to create a safer, more inclusive community. We must stop the cruelty and be kinder to one another.
“The AFL and broader football community has stated time and time again that there is no place for racism in our game. Despite this, we continue to see racism raising its ugly head almost weekly. It has to stop.
“As a community we have to say enough is enough. We are all equal. We are one community and we should embrace all people regardless of race, religion, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, disability or colour.
“Throughout the AFL we are striving to be a tightly integrated community which respects, embraces and celebrates our differences and diversity. Those who seek to see differences instead of commonality and union should have no place in our game.
“People who don’t accept these values or whom after years of education still don’t understand these principles, won’t be welcome in our club and we hope the broader football and non-football community takes a similarly strong stance against these ignorant few.
“Through our community arm, The Huddle, more than 85,000 young people from over 160 different cultures over the past decade have been engaged, supported and empowered through our programs to learn, grow and feel a stronger sense of belonging to the community.”
AFL chairman: How we’ll stamp out racism
Players guilty of racial abuse offences may have to prove they are worthy of coming back into football under a series of beefed up measures to combat racism under consideration by the AFL.
And AFL chairman Richard Goyder has defended his CEO Gillon McLachlan and declared him the person to lead the league on all fronts including racism after calls for McLachlan to resign from former Collingwood and Melbourne player Heritier Lumumba.
Speaking on ABC radio’s Sportstalk program Goyder said the events of the past week, with Adelaide’s Taylor Walker suspended for six weeks and fined $20,000 for a racist comment about SANFL player Robbie Young, had been “incredibly disappointing”.
“The thing we all have to recognise – the football community and more broadly – is the hurt that is evidenced in Heritier’s tweets. The impact it has had on Eddie Betts. That is one of the most compelling bits of television that I have seen,” he said.
“We have to realise that we all have to get better. It is terribly disappointing that in this case it was a senior member of a team and it is not as if people aren’t being educated on this.”
“We are going to do a few things. We are going to up the education and make it mandatory, like you do in corporates on various things so that there is a periodic renewal of understanding on cultural awareness.”
“We are going to make sure that every AFL club has Indigenous liaison people. Full time. We will make room in the soft cap and potentially there will be a stick (punishment) if it is not (done).
“There is always a debate, what is the penalty. I think we will turn it around and hopefully this goes through all aspects of the game around the country, which is that you are not in the game until you prove that you should be in the game if you breach things.”
“We just all have to get better. The hurt across the community is significant. You have seen it through individuals. There is so much in the game to celebrate with our Indigenous culture and these things just detract form that.”
He strongly defended McLachlan, who Lumumba claimed was “beyond privileged” and should resign, saying the AFL lecturing on racism was like being taught to drive by a toddler.
“I feel incredibly fortunate to chair a commission with a CEO like Gill McLachlan,” Goyder said.
“He is outstanding. Gill is right up there in terms of his integrity, his capacity. There is no better person to lead at an executive level of the AFL than Gill McLachlan on every front including this front.”
WA’s chances of hosting the AFL grand final have been boosted by calls from players for the finals and grand final to be staged where they can be played in front of crowds.
LUMUMBA: WALKER SLUR PROVES SYSTEM IS BROKEN
Matt Turner
Collingwood premiership player Heritier Lumumba believes racial vilification is more widespread in the AFL than just the Taylor Walker incident, as a result of cultural problems across the competition.
In the wake of Walker’s six-game suspension last week for a slur to North Adelaide’s Robbie Young, Lumumba said talk of the former Crows captain being well educated for 10 to 15 years proved the system was broken.
Walker made his comment while he was a spectator at a SANFL game between the Roosters and Crows’ reserves on July 17.
“Being ‘educated’ on racism by the AFL is like being taught how to drive by a toddler,” Lumumba, who played 223 games for Collingwood and Melbourne from 2005-16, tweeted on Saturday.
“Walker is not alone.
“Many, many, others employed within the AFL’s football departments behave and think in the exact same way.
“This is just the incident that made the news.
“Racism is endemic in this industry at all levels.”
Lumumba’s accounts of vilification during his time at the Magpies led Collingwood to commission the ‘Do Better Report’, which found the club to have a history of systemic racism.
The subsequent fallout prompted the resignation of Collingwood president Eddie McGuire.
In his series of tweets, Lumumba also criticised AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan, who conceded the league had not done enough to support Indigenous champion Adam Goodes when he was getting booed at stadiums across the competition in 2015 and had since apologised to the ex-Sydney Swan.
Lumumba pointed to the case of Joel Wilkinson, the ex-Gold Coast Sun who was racially vilified by the Western Bulldogs’ Justin Sherman in 2011 and later claimed the AFL had not handled his case correctly, as something people should research.
“The AFL has constantly hidden behind the failures of clubs instead of showing real leadership,” he tweeted.
“McLachlan was incapable of responding effectively to the Adam Goodes saga, & continually avoided any direct criticism of McGuire.”
Lumumba said he had been thinking a lot about ex-St Kilda player Young in recent days.
Young is not playing this week after wanting to take a break due to the toll of the Walker saga.
“I hope he and his family are doing OK through the intense attention that has followed him,” Lumumba said.
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