The suspension of Port Adelaide’s Jeremy Finlayson for using a homophobic slur against an Essendon opponent represents a watershed moment for the AFL.
Finlayson’s three-match ban is the first time an AFL footballer has been suspended for homophobic comments. It is to be hoped that it also will be the last, although the game’s experience with racism – a pathogen that survives in footy, despite progress on some fronts – suggests that would be optimistic.
Port Adelaide’s Jeremy Finlayson.Credit: AFL Photos
The AFL had no choice but to suspend Finlayson, and it could not sanction him for anything less than multiple matches and retain any credibility with the LGBTQ communities and, indeed, with a large and increasing body of the public – and even with their own players.
One of the most important aspects of the Finlayson incident is that Essendon players, plural, immediately called out the offensive word that the Port player deployed, which was also recorded on the umpire’s live audio feed.
AFL players are young men, whose attitudes, on the whole, are far more liberal on matters of sexuality and gender than their older school forebears. The culture has shifted, to the point a) that players will highlight a homophobic slur, b) that the offender will report to his football boss (Chris Davies) by the next quarter break, as Finlayson did, and c) that a suspension was the sanction.
That no male player has come out to the public as gay or bisexual in the competition’s history remains embarrassing to the code – which is why a gay ex-rugby league player, Ian Roberts, is an authority on this topic. One day, players will feel sufficient comfort, not only with their evolving and accepting club environments, but with the public consequences for them from media and social media, to take that step.
Was three matches too few or too many? This column’s view is that Finlayson could not be suspended for any less than three but that the number is sufficient to send the necessary message, which will resonate in the schoolyards, in the country and suburban footy ovals, in the grandstands at AFL and local venues and in the community at large.
To gay and bisexual people, the word Finlayson used – let’s call it the F word – carries the equivalent offence and nastiness as the worst racial slurs.
“I thought it was about right,” said Tony Keenan, a long-time activist in the Australian gay community, of the three match suspension to Finlayson. “That’s taking into account the remorse, which looked genuine.”
Why three matches was the right penalty for Jeremy Finlayson
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10.04.2024
The suspension of Port Adelaide’s Jeremy Finlayson for using a homophobic slur against an Essendon opponent represents a watershed moment for the AFL.
Finlayson’s three-match ban is the first time an AFL footballer has been suspended for homophobic comments. It is to be hoped that it also will be the last, although the game’s experience with racism – a pathogen that survives in footy, despite progress on some fronts – suggests that would be optimistic.
Port Adelaide’s Jeremy Finlayson.Credit: AFL Photos
The AFL had no choice but to suspend Finlayson, and it could not sanction him for anything less than........
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