Mitch Brown has taken to social media to call out the AFL clubs who have yet to issue public statements in the wake of his landmark coming out earlier this week.
ICYMI, the former Eagles defender made history on Wednesday when he revealed he is bisexual, marking the first current or former AFL player to ever openly declare their sexual orientation.
The announcement, revealed in an interview with The Daily Aus, was met with praise from some AFL clubs, with the GWS Giants, Western Bulldogs, Carlton and St Kilda among those to pledge statements of support for Brown on social media.
But not every club has reacted to the news, and Brown made note of their silence in a post shared to his Instagram Stories on Friday.
Per news.com.au, Brown name-checked Collingwood, Geelong, the Adelaide Crows, and the Brisbane Lions for failing to share a statement after his announcement.
“Might not pay my membership next year at this rate,” Brown wrote while tagging the Collingwood Instagram account.
Brown seemed particularly surprised by Geelong, tagging the club while reminding them that his brother, Nathan Brown, “works with you” as a coach on their AFLW side.
Of the Crows — the club home to recently banned player Izak Rankine — Brown said he “won’t even bother”, before referencing a recent post shared by the Brisbane Lions.
On Wednesday, the club posted an image celebrating Taylor Swift’s engagement, with no mention of Brown’s announcement. “You’re off the hook,” he wrote of the Lions.
“The Taylor Swift engagement is so much bigger than this,” he added.
On top of those mentioned, The Daily Aus reports that only half of the league’s clubs have responded to Brown’s coming out, with Essendon and Hawthorne also among those who failed to share dedicated responses on social media.
When asked of the clubs’ silence by The Daily Aus, Brown said, “I don’t see why a club wouldn’t want to stand for that”.
“I can’t help but think about how my younger self would have felt if my club didn’t show their support for something like this back when I was playing.
“It would have been yet another reason to keep pretending to be someone I’m not.”
Brown’s announcement comes amid a broader reckoning of homophobia in the AFL, with Rankine one of six players to cop suspensions for using homophobic slurs over the past 18 months.
Lead images: The Daily Aus/Instagram and Mitch Brown/Instagram
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