‘We’re not surprised’: Eddie Betts reacts to Hawthorn racism claims

AFL great Eddie Betts says he “wasn’t surprised” to be told of the racism allegations at Hawthorn, and has called for a league-wide review at each of the other 17 clubs.

Betts, an Indigenous star who retired at the end of last season, has been outspoken on racial issues, including detailing his harrowing experiences on an Adelaide Crows pre-season camp.

Eddie Betts said he was not surprised to hear the allegations made by Indigenous players about their experiences at Hawthorn Football Club.Credit: Getty Images

The former Crow and Blue, now an assistant coach at Geelong, praised the former Hawthorn players – who have not been publicly identified – for opening up in a review completed by the club following racism allegations made by Indigenous premiership star Cyril Rioli earlier this year.

“It was a tough read, to be honest, today. But I wasn’t surprised,” Betts said on Fox Footy.

“As an Aboriginal people, we’re not surprised as well because we face these issues in many systems.

“My heart goes out to those players for being brave and speaking up, and their families as well, but it was really hard.”

Betts said he knew one of the players who had detailed his alleged experiences, and would soon speak to that person.

“I’m just going to tell him how brave he was and [say] thank you for speaking up and bringing this awareness to everybody because if he hadn’t brought it up, we wouldn’t be going through this,” he said.

There has been significant fallout from the explosive claims first reported by the ABC, with former Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson delaying his plan to start as North Melbourne coach on November 1, and his former football manager Chris Fagan taking a leave of absence from his current job as Brisbane Lions coach.

Betts was rocked to hear that Shaun Burgoyne, the 400-game AFL star, who was an Indigenous leader at the Hawks and a long-time key voice on the AFL Players Association’s indigenous advisory board, did not know about the claims.

Shaun Burgoyne played for Hawthorn during the era now under review, but said he was unaware of the claims against senior management.Credit: Sebastian Costanzo

“This could happen at any club. If Shaun Burgoyne was at that club, and it slipped under the table ... Listening to him speak, he was very devastated that these boys didn’t speak to him,” Betts said.

“I don’t know if they were told not to speak to him or not, but if that was the case, this could happen at any football club. I think that every club should do a review like this – every football club should come out and do an external review. We want this industry to be safe for young Indigenous kids.”

Betts, whose maternal grandfather was part of the stolen generation, likened the allegations at Hawthorn to those injustices.

“It was kind of like that (the stolen generation),” he said.

“My mum’s father was a part of the stolen generation. He was taken away from his kids, and he’s told us stories about how that felt and how he was. It [what’s alleged at Hawthorn] kind of close to that in a sense. It was really, really sad to read.”

Four-time Hawthorn premiership player Jordan Lewis said he was “devastated” by the claims.

“The overall emotion is devastating. I can honestly say, hand on heart, when these allegations came out this morning, and you ring around ex-teammates and Indigenous teammates to see if they had known anything about it; until then, no one heard about any of this happening,” he said.

“The alleged conversations that have happened to those individuals, we, as a playing group, were never privy to those or never passed on any information that we needed to have input in.

AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan speaks to the media after the Hawthorn racism allegations.Credit: Getty Images

“It’s clearly disturbing if these allegations are true, and they’ve happened to these individuals when it should have been a safe environment. It’s upsetting.”

AFL boss Gillon McLachlan said he spoke to Betts and other senior Indigenous players on Wednesday night.

McLachlan told ABC News Breakfast on Thursday he had spoken to players including Betts, Burgoyne, Shane Edwards and others on Wednesday night.

What was confronting for them - and I think they’d be happy for me to talk about this - Burgoyne was there right through this period, and was confronted and challenged he didn’t see any sign of this,” McLachlan said.

“I know that was weighing heavily on him.”

Noting every club now had an Indigenous liaison officer, McLachlan said the next step he’d like to see is for each club to have Indigenous representation at board level.

“We need to keep talking about how we get the right representation, so we have strong voices at all levels of clubs,” he said.

But he said quotas were for a “broader discussion”.

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