Those who boo Adam Goodes, have the courage to admit you’re racist

Maybe the columnists and reporters in this paper have got it all wrong. Those, anyway, who have pointed to racism as the principal driver of the booing of Sydney’s ­indigenous footballer Adam Goodes. Those columns and news reports have been heavily criticised. Readers have argued in their comments to this paper that ­racism has played no part in the unrelenting booing that has followed Goodes for something like 18 months.

Nothing to do with the colour of the skin of Goodes but first of all a spectator’s right. And that privilege is activated by the fact that football fans do not like Goodes as a bloke.

It is, of course, more than spectators who boo Goodes. Those people who have vented their dislike of Goodes at the ground and in their seats have been backed up by others who see the issue and have their opinions. Those observations have been well documented in this paper and others. On talkback radio and social media. Booing in typeface.

So what is it that makes the critics of Goodes so loud, so persistent and, in so many cases, pointed and careering into rude?

They have been well documented. First, in 2013, he called out a young girl who called him an ape during play in the Sydney-Collingwood match in the indigenous round, which was established in 2007. The girl was 13 years old.

Critics claim it was not a case of racial vilification by the girl but of bullying from Goodes. They seem to have established that, at 13, you cannot be culpable of racial vilification although they have been unable to establish exactly at what age it becomes unacceptable to denigrate a person by the colour of their skin.

It might be 13 years and 11 months.

The footballer’s critics also seem to have not taken — or refused to concede — that the following day Goodes made these comments: “I had to leave the arena. It just broke my heart,” he said. “I don’t put any blame on her.”

He said: “I’ve had fantastic support over the past 24 hours. I just hope that people give the 13-year-old girl the same sort of support because she needs it, her family needs it, and the people around them need it.

“It’s not a witch-hunt. I don’t want people to go after this young girl. We’ve just got to help educate society better so it doesn’t happen again.”

Apparently, people don’t like Goodes because of this incident despite the ugly vilification and his genuine hope that the girl gets the appropriate support — whatever that is for a 13-year-old.

Next came Goodes’ appointment as Australian of the Year in 2014. He made a speech that was seen as divisive. But did he? Geelong Advertiser sports editor Michael Auciello considered this in a column on Wednesday.

“People wrongly think Goodes called for Australia Day to be known as Invasion Day. This is what Goodes actually said: ‘There was a lot of anger, a lot of sorrow, for this day and very much the feeling of invasion day,’ he said. ‘But in the last five years, I’ve really changed my perception of what is Australia Day, of what it is to be Australian and, for me, it’s about celebrating the positives, that we are still here as indigenous people, our culture is one of the longest surviving cultures in the world, over 40,000 years. That is something we need to celebrate and all Australians need to celebrate. There are people out there thinking that today is a great day for Australia — well, it is’.”

Only those looking to be outraged would see fault in these sentiments. Similarly, fans don’t like Goodes for his war dance. They don’t take time to realise that Goodes did that only after the booing got louder again in the indigenous round.

Another reason thrust forward for disliking Goodes is that he plays unfairly and seeks unwarranted free kicks from umpires. Really? In Thursday’s Herald Sun, football writer Jon Ralph did the sums.

“This year Adam Goodes — serious ducker, serial free-kick milker, seriously annoying player to many rival fans — has won a grand total of 11 free kicks. For the entire year.

“That figure from Champion Data puts him 168th on the list of AFL players. Behind a long list of stars including Joel Selwood (44), Anthony Miles (41), Trent Cotchin (39), Marc Murphy (39), Allen Christensen (37) and Todd Goldstein (33).

“Of Goodes’s 11 frees this year, not one was for head-high contact. Which puts him equal 436th in that category.”

These figures would suggest it is very difficult to dislike Goodes on a count that he is a free-kick swindler. Or that he is a dirty player. He has won two Brownlow Medals for fairest and best player in the AFL and missed just two games through suspension in a 353-game, 17-year career at the Swans.

On Melbourne radio this week, a desperate but committed Goodes critic was explaining that he booed him over an incident in 2011 — in which Goodes was neither reported by the umpires nor cited by the match review panel.

Sportsmen have been charged with domestic violence, drug abuse, sexual assault and not been booed anywhere near the level, the length or the regularity of Goodes. The difference? A blackfella with an agenda.

To say you boo him — so loudly, for so long and so regularly — only because you don’t like him is a lie. It is a mask for your cowardice, your bigotry and racism. You know Goodes considers the booing racial vilification. And you should have the courage to admit it.

Stephen Dank is the biggest villain in Australian sport. And what do we do? Take him out to sportsmen’s lunches. The nation owes Adam Goodes an apology.

Rewriting history on ‘ape’ call

The history wars are back with us. This time, the chosen battle ground is the MCG on a Friday night two years ago when a young girl called Adam Goodes an ape.

Goodes’s actions that night, we are now being told, is why he is to blame for ugly abuse being hurled his way by opposition supporters. If only Goodes would apologise to the girl, the argument goes, then the crowds and the game and one of the great indigenous champions could all move on.

What tosh.

This is what happened that night.