Former Adelaide recruiting manager Matt Rendell will go on television to defend his name after resigning from the AFL club over a racism controversy.
Rendell said in a media report on Sunday that he is not racist and added his comment to AFL community engagement manager Jason Mifsud was taken out of context.
He resigned from the Crows on Friday following an explosive newspaper article, where Mifsud said an unnamed recruiter had told him his club was unlikely to sign indigenous players unless at least one of their parents was white.
It quickly emerged that Rendell was the recruiter who had made the comment.
After Rendell quit, AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou called Rendell’s comments “shockingly ignorant and disappointing”.
Adelaide game record holder Andrew McLeod, who is indigenous, said on Saturday he was “very shattered” over the incident.
“If … I had an inkling that my club was racist, I wouldn’t have spent 16 years in that establishment,” McLeod said.
While Rendell resigned, Crows chief executive Steven Trigg said the recruiter’s position at the club had become “absolutely untenable”.
Rendell is set to go on Channel Nine’s Football Classified on Monday night to state his case.
He said on Sunday that he had never been against recruiting indigenous players.
“I’ve never been racist to anyone and I’ve never been opposed to recruiting Aboriginal players,” Rendell said.
“In fact, I have regularly recruited indigenous players throughout my involvement in football and I want to see more Aboriginal players at AFL clubs – not less.
“One line out of a 20-minute conversation has been taken out of context.
“Sometimes in life shit happens and this is one of those times.”
Former Essendon player Michael Long, one of the game’s most famous indigenous players, has called for the league to appoint an indigenous commissioner.
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