Retired AFL champion Eddie Betts labelled a spate of on-line racial abuse of gamers final weekend ‘targeted attacks” as league boss Gillon McLachlan vowed to track the culprits down.
The AFL‘s integrity unit is this week investigating separate incidents or online abuse involving four players from Adelaide, Fremantle and Brisbane following Round 4.
Clubs and the league have called the attacks out as “vile” and McLachlan said AFL was doing what it could to find the culprits and penalise them.
“The set of words I have, I am just sick of saying them,” McLachlan said ahead of Gather Round in Adelaide.
“It has got no place in our game, it has got no place in our community – it‘s frankly just a disgrace, it’s abhorrent.
“It causes a lot damage to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander neighborhood, frankly I believe it offends 99.99 per cent of all soccer followers, all Australians.
“I’m out of phrases.
“We are taking the motion we will. We work laborious to trace them down however we all know they disappear.”
Betts, who himself was subjected to abuse all through his stellar profession with Carlton and Adelaide, stated “enough is enough”.
“When I saw what happened over the weekend, it was hard to see, and my love goes out to those boys and they’re families.” he advised Fox Footy.
“Enough’s enough. When are we going to see a stance?
“It’s going to keep happening. It felt like it was a targeted attack.”
Betts stated motion required everybody calling out anybody who racially vilified a participant, however feared it will be laborious to stamp out.
“They don’t like Aboriginal people standing up for what they believe in and trying to stamp out racism. It feels like they want to put us back down in our boxes where they think we belong,” Betts stated.
“Everyone else needs to do their part and continue to talk and continue to educate and continue to have those conversations.
“Look at (Adam Goodes). He called out racism and it kept happening to him, and people were jumping on board even thought they didn‘t know what was going.
“It is disappointing to see. We just have to continue to keep educating.
“We’re seeing change, but it’s always going to happen.”
Source: www.news.com.au
