TOPIC:

Racial vilification – we at Lynwood Ferndale have had a player racially vilified twice in the past month by opposition supporters. I would like to think that these are isolated cases and not a common occurrence in our league. Have any other clubs had any similar incidents in 2014. We also went through this same issue twice in 2012.
It’s not good enough and needs to stop.

Report them to the club involved and to the League, no place for that rubbish but nothing gets done if the procedures arent followed.

Yea there is no place for racism anywhere in the world, let alone on/off the footy field. Unfortunately there are still a heap of 'backwards' people that think it is ok, even if they are 'joking around'. Its disgusting.
The people/clubs need to be reported and dealt with.

Hey gang, Scooby, Yolo, guess what, we are continually writing to the association every time this happens. Its becomming a joke, every time it happens the association asks us to come into their meeting room and have the person vilified go through a reconcilliation process with the person who said the comments.

How may times can someone be called a "Black C$%^" and then rock up on Wednesday night and hear the person say, Im sorry it was a spur of the moment thing. Its really compounded when the person doing the villifying has indigenous players at his own club which has been the case on every occassion.

The league has been weak as piss in their handling of this matter over the past two years, the said player has been vilified 4 times in less than 40 games, thats really poor form.

As we are not getting the outcome we require from the league we will now be taking our issues to the media, where we will name the clubs concerned, we will name the spectators if we can identify them, and we will let everyone know what sort of behaviour is going on continually in our community.

I must say though, full credit to High Wycombe players and committee, especially their captain Garth Taylor for addressing the Lynwood players after the incident. You know its bad when the opposition turns on their own based on what was said to the other team.

That sucks the fat one PH. No one deserves to be villified, racially or by any other means. We dont play ammo's for money, we play ammo's for fun and to mess around with our mates. No one should have to put up with that shit and I really hope you do take it to the media so the league can actually open their eyes and take control of the issue.

Good to hear about what the HW players did. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that most players / teams have taken massive steps in stamping out racism on the footy field, it just seems that most of the shit comes from the dickhead supporters.

Yolo, the kid has had two instances of on field abuse, these were a couple of years ago, but twice in three games this year it has been from the pissed supporters that think they are tough, standing in the bar drinking frothies and yelling abuse from behind the fence.

Media will be the next step, we have taken the steps to speak to representatives of a couple of national newspapers and they are keen to write a story the next time it happens.

Lets just be clear, Our club and our player doesnt want to be the face or racial descrimination, we are not interested in being the poster boy for this but we will fight the right fight, Our player just wants to play footy with his mates just like every other AUSSIE gets the chance to do.

Thanks for the support of people on here, now on with the footy

the last couple of times we played against kingsley it was the worst i have ever seen. not just one or two people yelling racist remarks, but basically the entire drunken crowd on the steps of the clubrooms.
i had never felt so embarrassed for the people themselves, and sick to my stomach to hear the things being yelled out like it was normal.
to the point that they even cheered when an indigenous player of ours had to be stretchered off because "the black c*nt deserved it".
even the side in the game before ours copped it, official complaints were filed but the league basically says the above, there are no penalties.

Maybe it takes a 'walk off' from the team whose player is targeted before the WAAFL do something about it.

The WAAFL wont do alot, they will raise it with the presidents at the nextmeeting

They tell us they refuse to ban a spectator because their argument is the said spectator can go and sit on the other side of the oval, thats a similar argument to the cops saying we wont bother to fine/ban drink drivers from driving because some of them may still drive......Its just a weak excuse from people to frightened to take up the fight for their own players rights.

they - the poeple that run our game at our level just hope the clubs clean this up, so they dont have to be involved, taking nice pay packets along the way

It only takes one fine or suspension to get out there and clubs will clean up their acts. If they are spectators of your club all they are doing is giving your club a bad name.

Can't imagine the WAAFL could do much if the offender is not a member of the league.

Raises a couple of questions with regards to racial vilification. When a player signs a clearance/registration form to enter the WAAFL system is there anything in the small print in which he agrees racial vilification of another player will result in fines/bans/suspension or expulsion from the league??? In wider society are their actual laws in which the police can arrest a perpetrator for racially vilifying someone other than hiding it under the term harassment??? I know there is in the workplace, just wondering about in the street. Genuine questions guys, I don't know the answers so hoping someone a little more informed than me can enlighten me whilst I do a little investigating of my own.