What was otherwise a quite extraordinary and wildly entertaining weekend of football in the AFL was sadly marred by a few individual boofhead fans who took it upon themselves to hurl disgusting homophobic and racial abuse towards players during the match between the Western Bulldogs and the Richmond Tigers at Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
At one end of the ground, a member of the Bulldogs cheer squad was evicted from the ground after making homophobic remarks during the game. Fellow fans at the ground reported the behaviour to Victoria Police, who escorted the fan from the stadium.
Meanwhile, a Richmond Tiger fan has since come forward today to issue a formal apology after he hurled racial abuse towards Bulldogs player Lin Jong during the course of the game.
Jong, who is of East Timorese and Taiwanese heritage, accepted the apology in principle, but wanted to make it very clear that the fan’s remarks were absolutely unacceptable. It’s understood that Jong did not hear the remarks personally during the course of the game, but a Bulldogs fan had subsequently attempted to quieten down the fan hurling the racial abuse, but copped abuse in return for doing so.
The Tigers fan, who is not a club member, subsequently came forward after hearing his remarks come up during the news coverage of the game.
In a statement released through the Bulldogs club today, Jong stated:
“It is disappointing these incidents still arise and I want to say to all football fans, including our own, that any abusive behaviour based on someone’s skin colour, race, sexuality or anything like that is just not acceptable in this day and age. Not in the game, and not in society in general.
It takes courage to come out and apologise, and I want to commend the Richmond supporter for doing so. He could have easily remained anonymous, but he chose to come forward and acknowledge his mistake.
I want him to know that I accept his apology. Doing this enables us all to move on and made me learn and teach something to make our community a little bit more embracing and accepting of diversity.”
The Tigers fan is not a club member, and as such there is very little in the way of repercussions that the Richmond Football Club can enforce upon the fan.
As for the Bulldogs cheer squad member, the Club stated that they are reviewing the incident to decide whether or not to revoke that fan’s membership.
The Bulldogs put on a towering display, further exemplifying their renewed youthful spirit, to down the highly fancied Tigers by 19 points. The Bulldogs remain undefeated after two rounds.
Photo: Quinn Rooney via Getty Images.
