ELEANOR HALL: Racism is yet again an issue for the Australian Football League.
In Melbourne over the weekend, a player of Sudanese heritage was racially abused by a fan during a VFL (Victorian Football League) match and a media sporting identity was filmed confronting a St Kilda fan who he says was abusing an Aboriginal player.
The AFL has put considerable effort into trying to end racism in Aussie rules football.
But a former footballer and federal politician says the game is not to blame.
Michael Edwards reports.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: It was big news when Majak Daw was taken by North Melbourne in the 2009 rookie draft.
He became the first Sudanese-born player to join an AFL club. It was hailed as a big step forward for a league which has had problems with racism in the past.
But over the weekend, Majak Daw was in the news again for all the wrong reasons. He was racially abused by a fan while playing for Werribee against Port Melbourne in the VFL.
Majak Daw says he was deeply hurt by the abuse.
MAJAK DAW: It does really hurt, you know, to be isolated when something like that is said. It really shocked me that it still goes on.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: The fan was thrown out of the ground and the issue is being investigated.
It came on the same weekend Collingwood president Eddie McGuire got into a verbal altercation with a St Kilda fan.
It's not known if the comments the fan made about Collingwood player Andrew Krakouer were racist but Eddie McGuire says they were unacceptable.
EDDIE MCGUIRE: We have zero tolerance. We have zero tolerance about having a go at a footballer about his creed or about his background or anything else. You are there to barrack and I was just making the point emphatically that we weren't going to tolerate for a third one. It was unsavoury, it wasn't good enough.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: Racism has been a problem for the AFL in the past.
In 1993, moves to stamp it out gained momentum when St Kilda player Nicky Winmar famously raised his jumper and pointed to his skin in response to being racially abused by Collingwood fans.
The AFL acted and introduced a no-tolerance approach to on field racism.
Aboriginal activist Sharon Firebrace helped the AFL with its anti-racism policies.
SHARON FIREBRACE: The AFL took a very strong leadership position and they did attempt to stamp it out immediately. It wasn't one of those, you know, we'll just cover up. We'll say nothing about it, so you know, we'll turn a blind eye and a deaf eye to the problem. The AFL certainly took some positive constructive strategic decision making and applied it right throughout all the clubs nationally.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: But the latest developments concern Sharon Firebrace. She's says it's clear the AFL also needs to educate its fans about racism.
SHARON FIREBRACE: It can do a lot more in terms of various sorts of promotions and marketing. Again, like having advertisements, getting more in the public arena, getting leaders, community leaders in society with some of the AFL greats, some of the great legendary players of the past and even those of the present, making statements about these in direct or indirect ways to stamp racism out, to eliminate it. To make it a more acceptable society, to make a place where it is equal, where all are equal before the law and all are equal in practice in society.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: Former independent federal MP and football commentator Phil Cleary was at the ground when Majak Daw was abused.
He says football isn't to blame. He says racism is a problem with society as a whole.
PHIL CLEARY: I genuinely thought that we'd passed by those times, especially in a game like that where there would be a crowd of people who might take it up with the perpetrator, so I was genuinely surprised.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: It is a problem the AFL did try to stamp out in the early '90s. I mean obviously it has worked on the field because there seems to be very few incidents of racial vilification now but has it not got across to fans?
PHIL CLEARY: The football community on the terrace is the Australian community and it is afflicted by all sorts of other forces - years of disrespectful views towards refugees, a Labor government now that demonises refugees as the Howard government did.
These kind of attitudes, attitudes to Muslims around the world, hysteria about Muslims, that is often the background or the back drop to the football crowd standing on the terrace. So don't separate the football crowd from the Australian community I would say.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: The AFL general manager of football operations Adrian Anderson says the league rejects any form of racial abuse or vilification at any level.
ELEANOR HALL: Michael Edwards reporting.
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