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The AFL risk losing much more than just Adam Goodes

29th July, 2015
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Expert
29th July, 2015
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The AFL’s initial reluctance to label the booing of Swans’ legend Adam Goodes as racism has backfired dramatically.

Up until Wednesday, CEO Gillon McLachlan was still unwilling to use the ‘r word’ when referring to the ugly jeers directed at Goodes.

While McLachlan has since penned his disappointment at the vilification directed at Goodes, his tardiness in doing so has epitomised the AFL’s inherently flawed process in dealing with the issue.

And so, almost nine weeks after the league celebrated Indigenous Round, and Goodes launched an invisible spear into the crowd, Australia’s inability to confront racism has once again reared its ugly head.

There has been nothing more disappointing this season, or indeed for a very long time in football.

Weren’t we past all of this? Didn’t we learn something from the strength of Michael Long and the bravery of Nicky Winmar?

Our memories are short and apparently impervious to consider that what has transpired since Indigenous Round – or even since Goodes was named the 2014 Australian of the Year – is yet another chapter in Australia’s complex relationship with issues of race and identity.

The AFL thought that by avoiding the issue this latest chapter would fade and people would once again forget.

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But by choosing to give the benefit of the doubt to those racists that masquerade as supporters, the AFL may have lost more than just Adam Goodes.

Michael O’Loughlin, a Swans premiership player and a proud Indigenous man, has said that he will no longer take his children to Swans’ interstate games because of the vitriol directed at Goodes.

In his eyes, an attack on Goodes is an attack on an identity, not just one person, and therefore an attack on him too.

If you were a young Indigenous Australian with a dream to one day play in the AFL, would you now reconsider that dream?

If you felt strongly about your heritage and wanted to advocate for Indigenous rights, then perhaps you would.

AFL supporters have had no trouble barracking for Cyril Rioli, Eddie Betts or Paddy Ryder because they have been mercurial, like so many of their Indigenous forefathers who played our great game.

But when it comes to advocating Indigenous issues, these players haven’t been anywhere near as vocal as Adam Goodes.

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It’s a personal choice and one that no one has the right to dictate, judge or discourage. But what it tells young Indigenous Australians is that if you want to be a footballer who is loved by crowds, then you must choose between your football identity and your Indigenous identity.

Or risk being booed.

The invisible spear that Goodes threw hurt no one, but there is now no hiding from the hurt weeks of jeering has had on the 2014 Australian of the Year.

The AFL chose the eleventh hour to intervene and in doing so may have lost a two-time Brownlow Medal winner in Adam Goodes, who has taken leave from the Swans to contemplate retirement.

But they may have lost much more than that.

He may be a future Rioli.

He may be a future Franklin.

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Or he may even be a she.

While that loss is currently no more than an intangible, what is certain is that the AFL has lost much more than Adam Goodes.

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