Heritier Lumumba tapes: Dane Swan says former teammate will never reconcile with Collingwood
Dane Swan has weighed into Heritier Lumumba’s ongoing feud with Collingwood, conceding he can’t work out what his former teammate’s “end game” will be.
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Dane Swan says there’s no hope of reconciliation between Collingwood and Heritier Lumumba and has urged his premiership teammate to find a way to move on.
The Magpie brownlow medallist said the situation was sad.
“I don’t know what H’s end game is here … I don’t know whether he’s looking for someone to say sorry 100 times … or he just wants to see the club burn and wants to see Bucks burn to the ground with it,’’ Swan said on his Hump Day with Swanny and Friends podcast.
“I’m sure he’s probably said what he wants but I don’t read all the tweets anymore. It’s kind of done for me. I do hope he finds what he’s looking for, he was a much loved member of our premiership side, a much loved member of the footy club but I can pretty safely say it’ll never be reconciled.”
Lumumba declared yesterday that the release this week of an extensive dossier and previously secret tape recordings of meetings with former coach Nathan Buckley had “closed the chapter” on his long-running feud with the club.
“Doing what I’ve just done in terms of going through the last 15 years actively pursuing facilitation with the Collingwood Football Club and obviously that has just come to an abrupt end with what just happened over the last few days, it really is a closing of the chapter for us,” Lumumba said on ABC radio.
“I have done everything that I can do on my hand and I have taken things as far as I can.”
Swan said he wanted Lumumba to get the results he was after so everyone could move on.
“This does not help anyone. It certainly doesn’t help the footy club and doesn’t help H,” Swan said.
“Get on zoom or go through his legal team, (say) listen let’s get this sorted out so everyone can move on so H can find peace within himself and the footy club. And the footy club can start to do better and move on and focus on what their main priority is to win games of footy and get Collingwood back to winning premierships. I just hope they can come to a resolution quickly because everyone has had enough of it.”
Swan said he wasn’t aware of a pornographic picture being shown by an assistant coach as Lumumba has claimed.
“We have to stop comparing football clubs to offices in the city as a law firm. They’re not law firms or primary school offices, they’re completely different,’’ Swan said.
“I actually can’t remember (the picture). You don’t reckon everyone laughed at the time, everyone left and laughed and walked out … it must have just been in their backs meeting because I just can’t remember it.
“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t someone (who) filmed it on the weekend, probably something you can find on a porn site. I’m shocked there’s been a huge big deal about that.
“It’s 10 years ago, move on from that stuff. If H still has a problem with how he was handled racially, well fair enough, but to start bringing up all this other stuff … I don’t know. He’s obviously got an end goal and he’s looking for something, I’m not sure what that is.
“It’s just sad now. It’s gone on far too long, he doesn’t want to speak and I don’t know how there’s going to be a resolution when he doesn’t want to speak to anyone.”
‘SAD’ EDDIE SPEAKS OUT ON LUMUMBA
Former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire still hopes Heritier Lumumba will one day return to the club.
“It’s just really sad, I’m not going to make a comment one way or another,” McGuire said on Footy Classified. “It’s very sad for everybody.
“You have to remember I was very close with Heritier and have not spoken to him in any other terms other than pure love and affection over the journey, that means nothing at the moment, that is not a criticism or anything it’s just the way I feel.
“And I just hope the door is still a little bit ajar at some stage for Heritier to come back. I think the welcome mat is still out but it’s his prerogative and it is really, really sad.
“The only thing I want to see going forward is if at some stage there is some way we can make things come together in some way.”
McGuire, who had been away in India on business for the past two weeks, only arrived back in Melbourne on Wednesday.
He revealed he hadn’t spoken to Lumumba for “five or six years” but was hopeful the 2010 premiership defender would be open to a return down the track.
“We want the place to be a happy place,” McGuire said. “As I said I want nothing more if Heritier was able to come back some time so we can all look back on the 2010 premiership, the years of fun that everybody had together.”
‘Fine’ Lumumba reveals next chapter
Heritier Lumumba has declared the release of an extensive dossier and previously secret tape recordings of meetings with former coach Nathan Buckley this week has “closed the chapter” on his long-running feud with the club.
As he opened up on his decision to lay bare his version of events during the tumultuous end to his time at the club, Lumumba said he had now done everything he could and taken the issue as far as he could with the Magpies in a bid to find a resolution to “nine years of suffering”.
Lumumba said he had found a way to turn “trauma into having the power of choice”, which he had exercised with the release of his detailed document and recordings this week.
“Doing what I’ve just done in terms of going through the last 15 years actively pursuing facilitation with the Collingwood Football Club and obviously that has just come to an abrupt end with what just happened over the last few days, it really is a closing of the chapter for us,” Lumumba said on ABC radio.
“I have done everything that I can do on my hand and I have taken things as far as I can.
“It has been nine years of first suffering because of the treatment that I was subjected to within the environment, which my claims have been vindicated through the Do Better report.
“And then later on, working out a way how can I turn this around? How can I turn trauma …. and experiences and memories into healing? So I actively went on a journey to strategize and find a way where I could basically get to reclaim my power and really turn trauma into me having the option and the power of choice, which is what I have exercised in recent days.”
Asked if he could now let go of the issue, Lumumba, who is soon to become a father for the second time, said “I already have”.
He said he did not want to carry “these truths” into the next phase of his life.
“I have got a son on the way in a couple of weeks, I have taken this as far as I can and I have spent 15 months trying my best to work closely with Collingwood,” Lumumba said.
“I made a decision not to carry these truths that I shared and these facts that I shared over the last 24 hours into the next phase of my life, specifically.
“I’m totally fine. I’m not connected to the football world and I don’t intend to be at all … I have not been more happier in my life ever since I left Australia because of this issue.”
Speaking on Wednesday, Collingwood coach Craig McRae said the club had made “significant change” in recent times amid Lumumba’s accusations.
The Magpies coach said the club was committed to getting better on and off the field, declaring the club was “not standing still.”
“I haven’t read it all (the accusations) so I’d clearly be making comments about things I don’t know the full detail of,” McRae said.
“My experiences may be different to his, but to be honest I’ve got back to this club and I’m really proud to be in this position of trying to make change.
“And the whole club has made significant change in the time I’ve been here, but also prior to me so we’re really concentrating on making this place the best it can possibly be.”
McRae said he was committed to making the club a safe space for players and staff.
“We take great pride in our environment right now and right now that’s all I can control,” he said.
“We’re really proud of the diversity we’ve got within our group and the safe environment we’re creating.
“We’ve got to get better in all areas and we’re not standing still, we want to improve.”
McRae said he had not discussed the Lumumba issue with his players as they prepared for Friday night’s clash with the Western Bulldogs.
“To be honest, we’re really concentrating on the Bulldogs,” he said.
“We had an education session last week around truth telling and these things are taking place, so we’re not standing still.
“We’re trying to get better and not just on the field but off the field.”
‘Multitude of recordings’: Lumumba’s warning to Bucks, Pies
Heritier Lumumba has slammed Nathan Buckley’s response to the previously secret tape recordings from their meetings, declaring he “stopped taking orders a very long time ago” from his former Collingwood coach.
Opening up on his decision to leak audio recordings from his tumultuous final year at the Magpies, Lumumba said he had “countless hours” of conversations with Buckley and “other people” he had not yet released but kept to “preserve his legal interests”.
As he declared Collingwood would “always remain a club that is associated with racism”, Lumumba said he was driven to release the recordings after his version of his treatment at the club had been continually “undermined” and become “intolerable”.
“This has been a nine-year history and I think what prompted me is the time that has elapsed, the time that I have given him to just own the truth and own the facts of the matter,” Lumumba said on ABC News Breakfast.
“Instead what he has done is undermine my truth, undermine the reality of what took place.
“I just could not accept that anymore. I gave more than ample time, it’s been more than eight years since some of these incidents happened.
“He has got a large platform and he has been undermining the facts and it was just intolerable for me and I had to do what I had to do.”
In a tweet to Lumumba, Buckley responded to the leaked audio by urging him to “put a full and uncut version of our conversations on the public record so as to provide context to our conversations and the support that was provided to you above and beyond that which could be reasonably expected in the circumstances”.
Lumumba said he had not yet released the full versions of the recordings as it would be “countless hours”.
“What I would say to Nathan Buckley is this is not a football match. I stopped taking orders from Nathan Buckley a very long time ago,” Lumumba said.
“I will share my truth as I see fit.
“I can say that for the last decade of my interactions that I have had within the AFL system, I have protected my legal rights because of the experiences that I have gone through.
“So, yes, there is a lot that includes conversations that I have had with Nathan Buckley and there is a lot that includes conversations with other people.”
The audio, tweeted by Lumumba on Tuesday, appears to verify his claim that Buckley accused him of throwing Eddie McGuire “under a bus” when he publicly questioned the then Collingwood president’s infamous King Kong gaffe.
Lumumba said he had not seen signs from Collingwood that the club had made any inroads when dealing with these issues, despite the release of the Do Better report early last year.
“In the last 15 months, I have been dealing directly with Collingwood, speaking with multiple board members, dealing with their legal team and what I have seen is a continuation of their misconduct, a continuation of dishonesty and also a continuation of damage control and looking to push out an image that is not based in the reality of the way that they are conducting themselves behind closed doors,” Lumumba said.
“I remain sceptical of any statements that Collingwood Football Club puts out and I think time will reveal all.
“To think that the club has made all these amazing inroads in the space of just over 12 months since the Do Better report has been released, I’m sorry that’s not the way change happens.
“Time will reveal if they have transcended this past but as far as I’m concerned, I think the Collingwood Football Club will always remain a club that is associated with racism.”
Collingwood chief executive Mark Anderson said in a statement this week:
“We remain committed to, and hopeful of, a genuine outcome for any and all players who have been subjected to racism at our club,” Anderson said.
“The Do Better report delivered 18 recommendations, including that a Truth Telling process and strategy be established to address and reconcile past acts of racism, and to inform ongoing change so that racism doesn’t occur in the future.
“We know we have more to do. We have commenced the Truth Telling program … the club is committed to ensuring any and all players who have experienced racism benefit from this process and look forward to and welcome their involvement.”
Lumumba said the AFL more broadly had an issue with racism, claiming the league had been “incompetent” dealing with the problem.
“When you look at the first nations players that have played the game, most of them have a history that is yet to be resolved when it comes to the reconciliation that is needed,” Lumumba said.
“This is something that the AFL unfortunately has proven itself incompetent to deal with and so it really is incumbent on the next leadership because it has so much to do to be able to evolve beyond what is acceptable.”
Pies forced to act after Lumumba’s porn allegation
— Simeon Thomas-Wilson
Collingwood is looking into claims from Heritier Lumumba that an assistant coach showed players a pornographic image in a team meeting during his time at the club.
Lumumba made the explosive claims in an extensive dossier he wanted to present to Collingwood in a now derailed truth-telling process.
Lumumba’s camp has released sections of the document that detail a series of misconduct claims against club figures including the use of a pornographic image in a 2014 team meeting by an assistant coach.
“An assistant coach showed a pornographic image during a team meeting to emphasise a point that he was making,” Lumumba says in the dossier.
“One of the team rules was to ‘come forward’, so he showed an image of a group of about five or more men ejaculating on a woman’s face with the words ‘come forward’ as a caption.
“Nathan Buckley was the head coach and seemed unfazed by it all.”
Lumumba also claimed the assistant coach accused of showing the pornographic image had also made a homophobic comment in a team meeting, prompting him to walk out of it.
The assistant coach doesn’t work at the club any more and the Magpies are doing work to ascertain what happened.
As part of them looking into it the Magpies have opened up a truth telling process and are encouraging anyone who was at the club who has concerns about the culture at Collingwood to take part in it.
Heritier, I offer you the opportunity to put a full and uncut version of our conversations on public record so as to provide context to our conversations and the support that was provided to you above and beyond that which could be reasonably expected in the circumstances.
— Nathan Buckley (@ncb_cfc) May 10, 2022
And facts???
— Nathan Buckley (@ncb_cfc) May 10, 2022
You asked to be removed from the leadership group and….
You asked to be traded from the club.
The club simply facilitated your requests.
Lumumba has withdrawn from a truth-telling process with Collingwood, along with Andrew Krakouer and Leon Davis, saying that “nothing has changed” in the wake of the club’s report into allegations of racism.
Collingwood chief executive Mark Anderson said the club still knew it had a way to go in the fight against racism.
“We remain committed to, and hopeful of, a genuine outcome for any and all players who have been subject to racism at our club,” he said.
“The Do Better Report delivered 18 recommendations, including that a Truth Telling process and strategy be established to address and reconcile past acts of racism, and to inform ongoing change so that racism doesn’t occur in the future.
“The recent 12-month review of the club by the Do Better authors found we have made ‘significant and genuine progress’ on many of the recommendations.
“The review gave us confidence that we are on the right track, and the whole Club at every level is committed to doing better.
“We know we have more to do. We have commenced the Truth Telling program, partnering with external experts to deliver a process that is supported, respectful and safe.
“The club is committed to ensuring any and all players who have experienced racism benefit from this process and look forward to and welcome their involvement.
“The club knows that we still have a long way to go in the fight against racism, and reiterate that we are committed to genuine outcomes for any and all players who have been subject to racism at the club.”
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