The chief executive of the Australian Football League, Gillon McLachlan, has apologised to Adam Goodes and said the league should have “acted sooner” to end his targeting by crowds.
McLachlan said in the AFL’s 2015 annual report that Goodes, a two-time Brownlow medallist, “had been subject to a level of crowd booing and behaviour that none of our players should ever face”.
The Adnyamathanha man’s final season in 2015 was marred by persistent jeering from opposition crowds, which became a national issue after Goodes responded one match by performing an Indigenous war dance.
He took time out in August to “get away from it all” and retired at the end of the season, declining to take part in the traditional grand final lap of honour for exiting players.
McLachlan said the debate over whether the booing was racist “put further pressure on this great Indigenous leader and one of our game’s greatest champions”.
“Adam stood up to represent Indigenous people and he took a stand on racism. For this, I believe he was subject to hostility from some in our crowds,” he said.
“As a game, we should have acted sooner and I am sorry we acted too slowly.”
He paid tribute to Goodes’s courage and humility. “I look forward to the day our game can properly celebrate the retirement of this great champion,” he said.
Another retirement custom, a farewell to Goodes’s home fans in round one of the upcoming season, has been delayed two weeks to avoid any incident with Collingwood fans. It was a 2013 game against Collingwood that arguably sparked the jeering, when Goodes called out a 13-year-old girl who referred to him as an ape.
In her outgoing speech this week, the league’s first female commissioner Sam Mostyn called for the appointment of a dedicated Indigenous commissioner to the AFL board.
Goodes played 372 games for the Sydney Swans, including two premierships.
