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Extreme racism in Australian Football League club

lionking

In the Peanut Gallery
lionking
Joined
Jan 23, 2007
Messages
57,992
Location
Melbourne
Yes, I know that Australian Rules is hardly super popular here, but this latest news has hit the competition like a bombshell. This, if true, will be the biggest scandal seen in almost all our sporting history.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09...d-chris-fagan-named-in-hawks-review/101452320

An external review commissioned by the Hawthorn Football Club will reveal allegations that key figures at the AFL club demanded the separation of young First Nations players from their partners, and pressured one couple to terminate a pregnancy for the sake of the player's career.
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By background, Hawthorn is a very rich and successful club, winning four premierships in the past decade or so. But they have a very poor record in recruiting indigenous players, with very few in the 70s and 80s (indigenous players at the elite level are over represented).

Anyway the reports are distressing, but are in extreme detail, with allegations verified by family and partners. Australia has very strong defamation laws, the reporter is very credible and it is certain that the report has been lawyered to death.

That a professional club in modern Australia can demand that indigenous players leave partners and that expected babies be aborted for the player’s career simply leaves me with no words.

All involved must be banned for life from the AFL, but this should go much further. The club must be held responsible for this. I hope Hawthorn are stripped of their recent premierships (there are precedents in other codes), draft picks withdrawn for several years, heavily fined and the club should play for no points next year.

One of my sons is a senior executive with one club (not Hawthorn) and will be feeling physically sick because he knows the people involved. And all this is happening in Grand Final week, where a 100,000 crowd will turn up. It casts a terrible pall.
 
Before I read the article, I had assumed that the alleged racism was in the dim, distant past. Then again looking at the Yorkshire Country Cricket team, there's still plenty of racism to go around.
 
The Don said:
Before I read the article, I had assumed that the alleged racism was in the dim, distant past. Then again looking at the Yorkshire Country Cricket team, there's still plenty of racism to go around.
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No very, very recent.

In a new development the main culprit, coach Alistair Clarkson has made a statement that he has been denied procedural fairness by not being provided a copy of the report. The reporter sent him the article he wrote which I linked, and asked for comments. He did not respond. The report now sits with AFL Integrity.

Before someone says “let’s wait for an investigation”, the report was the result of an investigation commissioned by Hawthorn. This came about after allegations of racism by indigenous players. It’s been investigated.

At no time did Clarkson deny the allegations.

The other interesting thing is the team my son works at tried very hard to appoint Clarkson as coach. He went to another team. Dodged a bullet my son’s team.
 
Looks utterly appalling. I feel very sorry for the players affected, it's a violation of trust from people who should have been looking out for them.

The report mentioned a similar investigation at Collingwood; do you know what happened there?

Dave
 
lionking said:
An external review commissioned by the Hawthorn Football Club will reveal allegations that key figures at the AFL club demanded the separation of young First Nations players from their partners, and pressured one couple to terminate a pregnancy for the sake of the player's career.
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09...d-chris-fagan-named-in-hawks-review/101452320
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How a coach could think that they could order a player to separate from their partner or demand that they get an abortion is astounding. That they would single out indigenous players is unbelievable.
 
Dave Rogers said:
Looks utterly appalling. I feel very sorry for the players affected, it's a violation of trust from people who should have been looking out for them.

The report mentioned a similar investigation at Collingwood; do you know what happened there?

Dave
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Collingwood’s offences were of much lower order. More casual racism, bad enough, but nothing like enforcing indigenous players to move homes or dump partners.

One thing I fully understand is that AFL clubs invest very heavily in players. The average wage of an AFL player is in the order of $A350,000. So they have a duty and responsibility to ensure the players are cared for. And most clubs do this by employing psychologists, welfare staff and medical staff. They know they have to take special care of valuable assets.

But Hawthorn for some reason decided to adopt a paternalistic, misogynistic and worst of all racist approach to dealing with indigenous players. They deserve to be harshly punished.
 
psionl0 said:
How a coach could think that they could order a player to separate from their partner or demand that they get an abortion is astounding. That they would single out indigenous players is unbelievable.
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The AFL is a master of sweeping problems under the rug. Essendon got off lightly for their “supplement” scandal and even my beloved Demons for tanking.

But there is no way out of this.

One thing that is for certain is that ex-Premier and Hawthorn President Jeff Kennett will no longer have a position of authority again.
 
This is just disgusting, but I'm afraid to say, I'm not as surprised as I perhaps ought to be. There have been a few incidents of racism involving AFL in recent years, the ones that first come to mind are the way Majak Daw (Kangaroos), Adam Goods (Swans) and Nick Nitanui, (Eagles) were treated by fans, with the booing and for the latter two, the monkey sounds.

However, this, what has happened at the Hawks, is just orders of magnitude worse that anything that happen to the others.
 
To be honest, while the racism is appalling, I think even without it, it sounds like the most toxic employer imaginable. Like you thought your boss was a bellend, now lemme tell you about Darth Bellend The Toxic who's telling you to have an abortion, or to divorce, because he said so. Like... what in the name of Lucifer Morningstar? It's stuff that needs some setup to not break suspension of disbelief even if you wrote a dystopian novel. Turns out that one guy decided to go even more dystopian IRL than most authors do in fiction.
 
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HansMustermann said:
To be honest, while the racism is appalling, I think even without it, it sounds like the most toxic employer imaginable. Like you thought your boss was a bellend, now lemme tell you about Darth Bellend The Toxic who's telling you to have an abortion, or to divorce, because he said so. Like... what in the name of Lucifer Morningstar? It's stuff that needs some setup to not break suspension of disbelief even if you wrote a dystopian novel. Turns out that one guy decided to go even more dystopian IRL than most authors do in fiction.
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Yes I agree. But I’m certain (and I have more than one child working in the AFL industry) that nearly all clubs are now completely serious about the welfare of their players, particularly the young indigenous ones. Seems like Hawthorn is the outlier. They had an indigenous liaison officer who worked one day week, but asked for more days to do his job properly. The club denied this request, saying they couldn’t afford it.

This man became involved in the investigation which uncovered these appalling events. What you sow, so shall you reap.

Despite the earnest words of the AFL hierarchy there has been no announcement of who will be reviewing this report. And there will not be tomorrow. The AFL desperately wants the season to finish on Saturday and then work through this issue when all clubs and fans have hung up their scarves. But the fallout will still be severe even in the off-season.
 
Extreme racism in Australian Rules Football League club

OMG!!11!!

There's racism in Australia? Against Indigenous people?

I'm shocked.
 
HansMustermann said:
To be honest, while the racism is appalling, I think even without it, it sounds like the most toxic employer imaginable. Like you thought your boss was a bellend, now lemme tell you about Darth Bellend The Toxic who's telling you to have an abortion, or to divorce, because he said so. Like... what in the name of Lucifer Morningstar? It's stuff that needs some setup to not break suspension of disbelief even if you wrote a dystopian novel. Turns out that one guy decided to go even more dystopian IRL than most authors do in fiction.
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Yes, I cannot imagine an employer thinking that breaking up a marriage is going to help their players. It's bizarre, cruel and almost certainly counter-productive.
 
Thor 2 said:
Yes I agree and cannot see the sense of it.

I would like someone to explain the logic behind it.
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I think you know if you are from Queensland.

It’s the old racist/paternalistic rubbish that young indigenous people are not capable of managing their own affairs and need the guidance and even force of white masters to succeed.
 
Thor 2 said:
Yes I agree and cannot see the sense of it.

I would like someone to explain the logic behind it.
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It's what every employer wants: "It'll be so much more convenient for me if you have no personal life whatsoever, mmmkay?" But in this case, they apparently only thought they could get away with demanding it when the employees were indigenous people.
 
Not so sure about "every". I mean, you'd imagine that statistically there aren't enough psychopaths for that. And then even those seem to not all be dumb psychopaths. You'd think at least some are capable to understand stuff like that it's also not productive if the employee is a depressed wreck. Or that it doesn't help with turnover.
 
arthwollipot said:
What's shocking is that it was so blatant and it went on for so long without being called out.
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If Clarkson and Fagan are to get off, the women who were subject to the alleged appalling behaviour and those close to them who confirmed what happened must be lying. I do not believe that young women, one who had an abortion and one who miscarried, would make up their stories. If they did it would constitute a sizeable conspiracy which would be difficult for young people to maintain.
 
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