AFL struggles to escape its past amid latest account of systematic racism in the game
The premise behind the AFL’s Sir Doug Nicholls Round is sound and admirable: for one batch of games per year, the sport celebrates Indigenous footballers and the immeasurable contribution they have made to the Australian game. It is a paying of dues of sorts, but for a code that has forever endured an ignoble relationship with racism it is at least some attempt at narrowing the gap between white privilege and black disadvantage. It is a recognition of Indigenous culture where in decades past there was none.
It could be argued the round’s very existence illustrates how far Australian football and, by extension, society has come. Administrators, broadcasters, players past and present: they all toe the party line and in the main none of it is disingenuous. The game’s powerbrokers appear to sincerely aim to deliver for their Indigenous constituents; at round’s end, they would likely be chuffed by their own progressiveness. And no matter your viewpoint, the Sir Doug Nicholls Round, named after an ex-Fitzroy player who was the first Aboriginal Australian to be knighted, is a good thing.
But one thing the AFL cannot do is escape its past. This week, despite its best efforts, the AFL is not basking in its own glow, rather confronting another challenge to its brand after revelations of systematic racism involving former St Kilda player, Robert Muir, in the 1970s and 1980s. Muir’s harrowing story, published by the ABC, documents heinous acts of degradation and the blind eyes turned by those who were meant to protect him. That it was decades ago makes it worse, not better. The Sir Doug Nicholls Round may be a step in the right direction, but for men like Muir – and other Indigenous players who have been chewed up and spat out by Australian sport’s history of ingrained racism – it is not a time of celebration, instead a painful reminder of how something as modest as a game of football can become a vehicle for ostracisation and persecution.
Muir is not alone, and nor did Indigenous footballers’ fight against racism stop with him. More than a decade after Muir, fellow Saint Nicky Winmar symbolised his culture’s refusal to be denigrated for the colour of their skin when lifting his guernsey and brandishing his bare chest to tormentors. In more recent times, Adam Goodes, Héritier Lumumba, Eddie Betts and others have been made to feel as if their
black lives do not matter. The AFL has since acknowledged it stood by and did little as Goodes was hounded out of the game, Lumumba is getting nowhere fast with his allegations of racial torment at Collingwood and Betts has had a banana thrown at him for no reason other than he is good and black. This season, Richmond players grabbing at the testicles and prodding at the rear end of Mabior Chol, a South Sudanese teammate, might not have been racially motivated but show that insouciance is alive and well in sport when it comes to matters of race.
What Muir’s story – combined with the want of otherwise sane people to keep it brushed under the carpet – has the capacity to do is lift the lid on the plight of other Indigenous footballers over the years. Both the AFL and St Kilda were quick to issue statements on Sunday night to acknowledge the story, apologise and promise to reach out to him. But as a starting point, both should foot the bill to get Muir off struggle street and pay for the catalogue of medical bills brought by his playing days.
Muir is likely the thin edge of the wedge. His manifest bravery in speaking out will hopefully encourage others to do the same. The AFL is prepared for this, and when it comes it should embrace it. Until full responsibility is taken for racial vilification, whether it took place last week or last century, the code cannot wish to move on. At an administrative level, the AFL appears to want to do the right thing. It already boasts a general manager of inclusion and social policy on its executive team and as part of a coming restructure will look to “boost the focus on the industry’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander agenda”. Gillon McLachlan, the chief executive, said the AFL would appoint a national talent diversity manager to work across Indigenous and multicultural talent programs.
Again, these are steps in the right direction. They are too late for Muir, whose decades of abuse led to addiction, depression, violence and attempts on his own life. Apologies and bids for reconciliation are due yet will only do so much for a man who has spent year after year trying to pick up the pieces of a shattered life. But his could be the greatest gift of all: the turning point for a sport that not only says it won’t tolerate racism, but now means it.