The Rugby Football League have been accused of making “empty gestures” and lacking common sense in their attempts to tackle racism by the only black coach in professional rugby league after Wigan’s Tony Clubb was found guilty of racially abusing an opponent.
Clubb was handed an eight-game ban by a tribunal on Tuesday evening, the lowest possible sanction he could have received after being charged with a Grade F offence of offensive language following an incident in Wigan’s game with Hull last week, when he was alleged to have called Andre Savelio a “stupid Polynesian cunt”.
But Jermaine Coleman, the head coach of London Skolars and the Jamaica national team, revealed he and several players he knows have been left disillusioned by the lenient punishment Clubb received. He told the Guardian: “There was a chance for rugby league to show it was at the forefront of these issues and make a real anti-racism statement. Unfortunately, we haven’t done that this week.
“There was a chance to put ourselves out there and lead the way in showing we won’t accept this behaviour. I feel very let down, and I feel like the RFL have let us down. In my experience, time and time again, rugby league applies no common sense to scenarios like this. This shouldn’t have been graded alongside any other offence. It’s an arrestable offence if you do it on the street. It makes a mockery of it.”
Coleman also believes the length of Clubb’s ban also cheapens the RFL’s position on tackling discrimination. The sport took part in last weekend’s social media blackout aimed at tackling online abuse, while players are currently encouraged to make a stand against racism for 13 seconds before every game with the sport’s newly-devised ‘Tackle It’ initiative.
“I think they’re empty gestures,” he said. “It makes a massive mockery of asking people to take the knee – but the fact they’re asking people whether they want to take the knee to start with is a kick in the teeth.” The tribunal ruled that Clubb was not a racist, more that his language was used in the heat of the moment. But Coleman insisted that does not satisfy him and many players of BAME origin.
“We’ve had players banned for 10 games for grabbing someone between the legs [Bradford’s George Flanagan] but this gets passed off as the heat of the moment,” he said. “This is real life. If you get caught speeding, you can’t just say you were driving fast in the heat of the moment. It doesn’t sit well with me and a lot of players. I can’t imagine it sits well with the general public, either. Rugby league had a chance to say it won’t tolerate this kind of behaviour; instead, we’ve sent the opposite message out.”
