Eddie McGuire condemned by history

Collingwood’s Eddie McGuire announces his departure from the club presidency. Picture: Alex Coppel

Eight long years after the Adam Goodes catastrophe, Eddie McGuire has been forced to accept that words have consequences.

Eddie Everywhere had worn thin and Eddie All Over The Shop had become an embarrassment to his club.

May 2013 was the first time the Collingwood president’s apparently thoughtless comments added fuel to a racial fire.

On the Friday night a young Magpies supporter had called Swans star Goodes an ape. McGuire apologised on behalf of the club and Goodes called on Australians to support the girl and not blame her because she did not understand the words she used (to this day, race-baiting provocateurs in the media blame the victim for attacking the girl in the face of this reality).

On the Monday morning all those years ago the club president, known as Eddie Everywhere because of his many media commitments, mused on his radio program that Goodes could be used to promote the musical version of King Kong.

It was a moment so horrific it was hard to comprehend. Surely that didn’t happen? Surely he didn’t just say that?

McGuire apologised, but it never sat well with Goodes or the Sydney Swans.

How the hell does a person who started out as a journalist and who lives their whole life in front of a microphone slip up and come up with the sort of statement your racist uncle would think twice about making among his mates on Facebook?

McGuire survived.

Goodes, however, was chased from the game in the fallout from the row as the same provocateurs egged on braying crowds.

One gaffe may have been dismissed as careless by the charitable, but two have proved too many. In 2021 people were not willing to accept a repeat of his claim that his mouth uttered words at odds with his thinking. Fool me once and all that.

Last week McGuire claimed the release of a report that found systemic racism and a culture of cover-up at Collingwood was a proud day for the club.

It is hard to remember a more tin-eared/ham-fisted/foot-in-mouth statement in the public domain — although Alexander Downer’s jokes about domestic ­violence at the launch of a policy on just that would come close.

McGuire is, however, a professional communicator with decades of experience in radio and television. He was forced to apologise last week for the “proud” comment just as he was forced to apologise for comparing Goodes to an ape.

He is not that sort of person, he claims, but how many times can that excuse be accepted?

He is the sort of person who allowed Sam Newman to mock Nicky Winmar by appearing in black face on a program McGuire hosted and defended that appearance in more recent times.

The Old Mates Act is apparently on the statute books in Victorian football and was in action again when Premier Dan Andrews backed McGuire over last week’s catastrophe.

Collingwood has history of racist incidents which date back to, but did not start with, Nicky Winmar at Victoria Park in 1993, moved on to Adam Goodes and then Heritier Lumumba in more recent times — a chapter that remains unresolved.

The rest of Collingwood was so horrified by McGuire’s response, according to one report, they held a meeting without the president, and the players later released a statement condemning racism. It was a clear attempt to distance themselves from the boss who has also lost his morning radio program and television program.

On Tuesday, McGuire listed all the inclusive and progressive programs of the club which he was proud of during an emotional but essentially defiant resignation speech at the club.

It was a significant and impressive roll call, but McGuire had spent any goodwill he has left.

He claimed that had he stuck to the script in his original response he would not find himself in this position. “It needs to be noted and underlined that in undertaking this review, the club was unflinching in holding a mirror to itself. It was a brave first step,” he said.

McGuire would not take any questions yesterday. It was ­probably for the best.