Ex-Collingwood star Heritier Lumumba close to tears on The Project

EX-COLLINGWOOD AFL player Heritier Lumumba held back tears on The Project describing the tag he carried around at the club.

HERITIER Lumumba grew up being called vile names — and he says the racist attacks continued into adulthood when he was playing for one of the AFL’s biggest teams.

Lumumba — who played under the name Harry O’Brien — made the startling claims recently ahead of a documentary lifting the lid on what he says is an underbelly of racism at Collingwood.

In the film, titled Fair Game, Lumumba describes the team as a “boys’ club for racist and sexist jokes” and accuses head coach Nathan Buckley of lacking “emotional intelligence”.

The documentary was screened last week on SBS.

In an interview with Waleed Aly on The Project on Tuesday, Lumumba appeared close to tears as he repeated the allegations.

“You can imagine going in to your workplace and every day you’re being reminded, I guess, of your oppression. When I was younger I wasn’t aware of that but over time it had a compounding effect… If I were to say some of the jokes, you would be appalled,” he told Aly.

The Pies’ 2010 premiership player also said his stand against president Eddie McGuire’s 2013 racist radio joke towards Adam Goodes ultimately led to his departure from the club.

“All of a sudden I was getting a call from Eddie, he was saying ‘why didn’t you say something?’… I said ‘if you don’t understand why I would be offended with this and why I would separate myself from this, why I would refuse to stay silent on this, then you know there’s an issue here’.”

The Project host Waleed Aly speaks with Heritier Lumumba. Picture: The Project

Lumumba said he believed the club should have distanced itself from McGuire after the radio incident, accusing them of “inaction” and “ignorance” for not doing so.

“To me that is a huge indictment on any organisation if they don’t know how to deal with something as simple as that.”

In the documentary, Heritier claimed during his time at Collingwood he had been called the racist nickname ‘Chimp’. But that has been denied by coach Nathan Buckley, and no other player or club figure has confirmed they ever heard that word —or other racist names — being spoken to Lumumba.

He said “players” at Collingwood called him ‘Chimp’, but refused to say who.

“Lets say.. I’m not prepared to isolate or single out any players by name but there were a considerable amount of players for it to be a daily occurrence.”

Asked by Aly if Collingwood’s denials of racist attacks was misleading he replied: “Absolutely”.

When pressed by Aly on why no one associated with the club would support his claim, he said he would be surprised “if a majority of the players weren’t aware of the racist jokes or the nickname”.

“You have to understand the situation players are in… to speak out against a club that in many ways you feel as though you owe… it’s a very difficult thing to do”.

It was a culture that “normalised racist jokes”, he said.

Lumumba grew emotional when he spoke about growing up with racist taunts, and as he reflected they were still being used against him and young people to this day.

“You know what’s heartbreaking Waleed? I am seeing the same things happen to me.. that happened to me when I was in primary school, playing football, that are happening to my nieces, happening to my younger siblings. This traumatises people. It affects you in a horrible way. You have to claw your humanity...you have to put the pieces of your humanity back.”

Retried AFL star Héritier Lumumba reflects on the systemic racism present in both football and society. #TheProjectTV pic.twitter.com/poKXWS4t06

— The Project (@theprojecttv) September 12, 2017

In a statement, the Collingwood Football Club said the entire club was “committed to understanding better the experiences of players and racism, on the field or beyond the boundary”.

“Collingwood has reached out to Héritier, and we are very keen to listen and learn from his experiences. Constructive discussions on race and cultural understanding are always welcome.”

The statement continued: “The club has been seeking an opportunity not only to talk with Héritier but to share with him the significant work Collingwood is doing to educate all of its people.

“Héritier, as a former player, will always be welcome at Collingwood. We expect that should he return he will discover a club committed to the goal of constant betterment in all that it does.”