Racist comments by Adelaide’s former recruiting manager Matt Rendell caused deep hurt to an AFL official, Crows chief executive Steven Trigg says.
Rendell says he is not a racist, despite his resignation last week after a racist comment he made to AFL community engagement manager Jason Mifsud in January became public.
Rendell told Mifsud the AFL was heading towards a situation in which the Crows wouldn’t recruit an indigenous player unless he had at least one white parent.
Rendell told the Nine Network’s Footy Classified program on Monday the comment was a ridiculous throw-away line and he would never actually have such a policy.
Trigg told radio station FIVEaa on Tuesday he agreed “by and large” with Rendell’s version of events – except Rendell’s belief that Mifsud and another man at the meeting were not offended.
“That is the part that is very difficult to fathom,” Trigg said.
“That’s just not right. They were hurt and it wasn’t just one sentence of hurt but much of that said meeting.
“They were deeply offended … they couldn’t believe what they were hearing.”
Rendell says he was given no choice but to quit the Crows, as the club believed “mud would stick” to them should he stay on.
Trigg said racism is against the club’s values and agreed such a tag would stick.
But Trigg said he was supporting Rendell and hoped he returns to the AFL.
“Who knows? Maybe in time with us, you never know.”
He said one regret about Rendell’s resignation was the club didn’t make it clear enough that Rendell wasn’t a racist.
“Matthew Rendell is not a racist … but he made an awful error of judgment in what was clearly an animated discussion about pathways.”
Rendell said the line which led to his exit was a stupid attempt to convey the urgency with which he believed the AFL needed to act to find a better way to keep indigenous players in the league.
“The comment that I made originally was stupidly trying to emphasise the problem that we’ve got at the moment and we need to do something about it quick.
“The AFL need to get involved in it … everyone’s whacking each other, (AFL chief executive) Andrew (Demetriou’s) whacking the whole world.
“What they need to do is get on the right page. The media need to get in with them – they need to fix the problem.
“It’s a problem in the industry.”
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