Andrew Bolt: NRL’s new wokedom is a total joke

NRL commission chairman Peter V’landys needs to realise there is something bogus and bullying about ordering players to support a cause, even a good one.

My God, I’d hoped the debacle over the Manly Sea Eagles’ “inclusive” Pride jersey would have taught Peter V’landys a lesson on woke bullying.

But no, on Wednesday the NRL commission chairman just proved what complete hypocrites these virtue signallers are.

Manly had already managed to offend just about everyone by arrogantly ordering its players to wear a new Pride jersey in support of the LGBTQ “community” without even bothering to ask the players if they minded becoming walking billboards for the cause.

Manly arrogantly ordering its players to wear a new Pride jersey in support of the LGBTQ “community”.

As it happened, seven players – Pacific Islander Pentecostals – sure did.

It was against their culture and religion, they claimed. And in the name of “inclusion” all seven have been excluded from Manly’s must-win game on Thursday.

What a backfire. Players upset. Fans furious. LGBTQ activist outraged. Sponsors mortified. Pentecostals seething.

You’d think V’landys would have realised there is something bogus and bullying about ordering players to support a cause, even a good one, and would be alive to the hypocrisy of excluding players to demonstrate inclusion.

But no. Get these quotes from his interview on Sky News.

“I am the first person who doesn’t want sport to be politicised,” said the man now planning a whole Pride round.

“In Australia we have freedom,” said the man who denies the freedom of players not to protest for a cause they don’t endorse.

NRL commission chairman Peter V’landys. Picture. Phil Hillyard

False, responded V’landys: “We would give them the freedom to of choice to stand down.” But not the freedom to play.

“(The Manly Seven) can have their religious beliefs and the beauty about this is that they’re not espousing them, they’re not going out there with banners et cetera, which is the wrong thing to do,” said the man who wanted them out espousing V’landys beliefs with banners, et cetera.

“The beauty of sport (is that) differences go out the window,” said V’landys, after his NRL marched the seven players with a different opinion out the back door.

If V’landys was arguing against himself, he could not have done a better job to prove the NRL’s new wokedom is a total joke.