Collingwood racism row: Heritier Lumumba fires damning letter to Magpies chiefs

Heritier Lumumba has sent a scathing letter to the club, and one of his claims centres around Eddie McGuire’s infamous Do Better report press conference. READ THE FULL LETTER

Former Collingwood player Heritier Lumumba has fired off a damning letter to the club. Picture: Michael Klein

Collingwood premiership player Heritier Lumumba has fired a damning letter to the club’s sponsors and expert panel on racism, declaring that the Magpies “cannot be trusted to pursue genuine reconciliation with its past”.

Lumumba has accused the club’s senior leaders and high-powered legal team of not even making “the bare minimum effort of reaching out to players … who have been victims of racism” since the leaking of the Do Better report 15 months ago.

In a scathing letter sent to Collingwood’s expert 12-person anti-racism panel and its major partners Nike, La Trobe Financial, KFC and Emirates, Lumumba said that because of the club’s “continued misconduct” he had walked away from the “so-called truth-telling process”.

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Former Collingwood player Heritier Lumumba has fired off a damning letter to the club. Picture: Michael Klein

Lumumba tweeted two weeks ago that former Magpies stars Leon Davis and Andrew Krakouer had also ceased dealing with the club.

The reigniting of Collingwood’s racism row comes just weeks after the club hailed meaningful and promising progress on the implementation of the report’s recommendations.

In his letter, addressed to Collingwood’s ‘Expert Group on Racism’, Lumumba claims:

*Collingwood’s legal team “made a direct request for me to silence a former teammate (Shae McNamara) who was speaking out on social media in support of those affected by racism at the club”.

*Senior club figures had “expressed their disgust with Eddie McGuire’s comments at the initial Do Better Report press conference” but failed to follow through on a commitment to hold “a public press conference to address and distance the club from these comments”.

*The “general tone of some senior Collingwood figures, particularly its legal team, has been disrespectful, combative and resistant to change”.

Lawyers representing Lumumba and other players first put a truth telling proposal to Collingwood in June last year, but the club was insistent it wanted to design its own framework.

Eddie McGuire stepped down as Collingwood boss in January last year. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Tensions flared during an online meeting in December attended by Lumumba, Magpies director Jodie Sizer, club CEO Mark Anderson, Collingwood’s ‘Do Better’ strategic advisor Taryn Lee, two club lawyers, four First Nations experts in cultural change, an indigenous elder and a solicitor for the players.

Krakouer and Davis were not present but were fully committed to the establishment of a formal truth telling process, one of the top recommendations of the ‘Do Better’ report.

In his letter, Lumumba says: “Collingwood’s legal representatives were so disrespectful and culturally ignorant that the entire meeting was completely derailed.

“There were multiple heated exchanges between the mediators and the club, which prevented any discussion about truly healing the past, and created new levels of distrust.

“Following this meeting, CFC not only failed to properly acknowledge their behaviour, but also insisted on pursuing its own version of a truth-telling process while accusing us of being driven by financial motives …”

Lumumba in action for Collingwood against West Coast Eagles.

Lumumba said as an “act of good faith, the decision was made to remain silent, publicly, while” engaging in discussions with the club.

“Ironically, as a code of silence was maintained throughout their ongoing misconduct, the club opportunistically took advantage of the situation and widely advertised to the public that they had engaged in discussions with former First Nations players, and their former player of colour,” he said.

“In dealings with the club’s executive leadership (past and present) and their legal team over the past 15 months, there has been a series of problematic episodes of ignorance, arrogance and incompetence, as well as a continued abuse of power.

“Senior CFC figures made several representations that were not fulfilled and behaved in ways that were unacceptable.

“It is not lost on me that the same legal team that once attempted to suppress the release of the Do Better Report has now essentially scuttled any possibility of a meaningful reconciliation process.

“Furthermore, I have sufficient reason to believe the club has not been timely or fully transparent with the expert panel about these dealings.

“It is also impossible to know just how truthful the club has been concerning the information it has presented for its recent review regarding the Do Better report.”

Lumumba said the club was incapable of acting in good faith.

“This is why I made the decision to withdraw from any discussions with the club, and refuse to be a participant in its so-called truth-telling process,” he said.

“I will now seek a different way to deal with the burden of the truth I have carried for far too long.

“I am grateful to my brothers Leon Davis and Andrew Krakouer for their continuing support through this journey of healing. Our brotherhood has made it possible for me to continue fighting.”

Yokayi Footy co-host and former AFL footballer Andrew Krakouer. Picture: Supplied

In the days after the release of the ‘Do Better’ report, Krakouer and Davis opened up on their own experiences with racism at the club.

Karakouer told of a shocking locker room incident in which three teammates shared a joke about a “b**ng being hit by a car.

“They were having a bit of a laugh and I walked over and I said, ‘Would you guys mind telling me what is so funny?’

“He told me that the word ‘B**ng’ came from back in the day when white Australians used to run over Aboriginal people in their car and that ‘B**ng’ was the sound the car made when it hit them,” he said.

“I was absolutely disgusted in that person’s response and the fact that it was funny to him and that it was a joke.

“These guys were my teammates and I had to play footy with them. It was a moment where I really thought to myself, ‘what am I doing here?’.”

Andrew Krakouer and Leon Davis at a Collingwood fan day during their time at the club.

Davis detailed how a group of Collingwood teammates had filled out an AFL Record pocket profile under his name with racially offensive answers - and left it sitting on his bag next to his locker.

Lumumba issued Supreme Court proceedings against Collingwood in October 2020 claiming the club and the AFL failed to protect him from racial abuse and racially-offensive conduct.

The ‘Do Better’ report found that there was “systemic racism within the Collingwood Football Club” and that its response to repeated incidents of racism “has been at best ineffective, or at worst exacerbated the impact”.

It led to the formation of the expert anti-racism group to assist the club in implementing 18 recommendations contained in the report.

In a statement last February, Collingwood said the group would advise the club on how to improve “the framework for responding to incidents of racism, the creation and implementation of anti-racism policies and ways in which Collingwood can learn from its past to lead in the future”.

READ THE FULL EXPLOSIVE LETTER BELOW