Footy has its bigots but so does the rest of society, writes footy fan and feminist Cheryl Critchley
The AFL is an easy target these days.
As a left-leaning feminist who loves footy and traveled interstate three times to watch Richmond this year, I’m the first to criticise the AFL when it deserves it. Grass roots fans have long been taken for granted and the Grand Final is now a corporate event excluding too many genuine members.
Footy has also long had a blokey culture and has a way to go before women are considered true equals. But it is unfair to brand the culture of the AFL and its fans racist, sexist and homophobic based on verbal abuse by a feral minority.
Sydney fan and academic Erin Riley made some valid points when she said her day at this year’s Grand Final was ruined by people calling Adam Goodes a racist, referring to players using female pronouns and chanting “Sydney takes it up the a…, doodah, doodah.”
Racial and sexist abuse is clearly unacceptable. But these people don’t represent the vast majority of AFL fans who do the right thing.
I’ve been attending games since the 1970’s and today’s AFL crowds are many times better behaved. When I was a kid it was not uncommon to hear Aboriginal players called “black bastards” (or worse), cheer squads chanted “So and so is a poofter” and patrons carried in slabs of beer they’d down before spewing abuse at umpires and the opposition.
Women were nowhere to be seen in positions of power at the league or its clubs. But since then the AFL has genuinely worked to turn this culture around and to make footy much more inclusive and respectful of difference. This has flowed onto most fans.
The Age’s Clementine Ford has also weighed in on the debate, arguing that if the AFL was really serious about diversity it would adopt a zero tolerance policy to abuse. As an organisation the AFL is far from perfect, and I have said so many times, but it has attempted to enforce zero tolerance in this area.
I have been taking my kids to Richmond games for 15 years and not once have we heard racist abuse yelled at a player. When someone does say something offensive, fellow patrons usually tell them to put a sock in it and they do. Security is rarely needed, but when someone oversteps the mark they are evicted.
Erin says the security guard she sought out claimed that he couldn’t do anything, but they can and do – hopefully she just struck a slacker. At the Port Adelaide-Richmond final, a Power feral who ran down to taunt the Richmond cheer squad was swiftly removed.
Cheer Squads police strict codes of conduct that ban abusive behaviour and the AFL displays a text number at games for people report anti-social behaviour. In a number of cases, fans have reported racist behaviour against Adam Goodes and other players to authorities who have revoked the offenders’ memberships.
To its credit, the AFL has worked hard to improve inclusiveness by promoting multiculturalism, boosting female participation and denouncing racism and homophobia. Women are welcome in many more official positions than in the past.
We now have women on the AFL Commission, working at AFL clubs, on club boards and even an assistant coach at St Kilda in Peta Searle. My club has a female president and when I coached Auskick for seven years I received unqualified support from all the men.
It would be great to see more women in positions of genuine power in footy, but this is a good start.
Erin noted that the main Grand Final TV commentary team had five white males. This is not ideal, but there is growing diversity in the footy media. The likes of Sam Lane, Caroline Wilson, Tiffany Cherry, Megan Hustwaite and Christi Malthouse and Neroli Meadows have helped paved the way, and Kelli Underwood called several games.
The Marngrook Footy Show looks at the game from an indigenous perspective with two female presenters – Leila Gurruwiwi and Shelley Ware – and Richmond player Bachar Houli runs a high performance football talent camp for junior players from an Islamic background.
The AFL also has a respect and responsibility policy and educates new players about their social responsibilities. While no-one is claiming this has freed the football world of racial or gender issues, all of these developments are positive and should be acknowledged.
Sometimes those who denounce the AFL and crowd behaviour (and this doesn’t include Erin as a Swans member) base their criticism on one or two games where they had the misfortune to sit near idiots. I attend almost every Richmond game in Melbourne and can honestly say such abuse is not common.
Regardless of anyone’s efforts to create a truly inclusive football world, we will never achieve utopia. The fact Erin was trolled online for expressing her opinion illustrates this.
That behaviour is unacceptable and should be called out for what it is – vitriolic and unjustified abuse by people with low self-esteem who seek some sort of satisfaction by attacking those they feel threatened by.
But this happens in all walks of life and thankfully trolls are in the minority. At AFL games, that minority is even smaller. As someone who has attended Richmond games for 35 years, I have literally watched as football culture has become more inclusive and respectful.
All AFL teams still have a small percentage of feral fans who hurl sexist, racist or homophobic abuse – some clubs more than others. No club is immune, just as no society is immune from bigots. Any large group of people will have a percentage who spoil it for the rest through ignorance, malice or both.
Why should footy be any different?
You can never eliminate this element completely, just as you can’t rid society of bigots, misogynists and religious extremists – just look at Federal Parliament! But the AFL and most of its fans are at least trying to minimise it and deserve some credit for their efforts.
– Cheryl Critchley is a Melbourne journalist and Richmond member who sat in the Richmond Cheer Squad at the 1980 Grand Final. Twitter: @CherylCritchley
– Image by Michael Coghlan
