Eddie McGuire speaking to reporters on Monday. Speaking at Collingwood s AGM on Tuesday evening, McGuire conceded he should not have referred to Monday as a proud day for the club. I got it wrong, McGuire said. I said it was a proud day, and I shouldn t have. I meant to sincerely acknowledge not only the enormous work the club had done, especially Jodie Sizer and Peter Murphy, in bringing this report together. But also the report of all our staff and their preparedness to take a deep and uncompromising look into our past as a club. I did not mean we were proud of past incidents of racism and the hurt that it caused, I am not. It s been interpreted widely that way, and I regret that deeply.
Mr Lumumba said it was an example of a deeper problem Australia has with truth-telling.
“I can t help but just see that the Collingwood Football Club is really a microcosm of the greater Australian narrative, which is the fact that there s an unpreparedness or inability or lack of desire to reconcile with its checkered, brutal past and that it has inflicted severe pain on individuals and communities and families, he told NITV News on Tuesday.
‘Standing on the right side of history’
Mr Lumumba has repeatedly called out the Collingwood Football Club for dismissing his complaints of racial abuse and discrimination experienced when he was a player at the club between 2005 and 2014.
Eddie McGuire speaking to reporters on Monday. Speaking at Collingwood s AGM on Tuesday evening, McGuire conceded he should not have referred to Monday as a proud day for the club. I got it wrong, McGuire said. I said it was a proud day, and I shouldn t have. I meant to sincerely acknowledge not only the enormous work the club had done, especially Jodie Sizer and Peter Murphy, in bringing this report together. But also the report of all our staff and their preparedness to take a deep and uncompromising look into our past as a club. I did not mean we were proud of past incidents of racism and the hurt that it caused, I am not. It s been interpreted widely that way, and I regret that deeply.
Instead the tactic fitted precisely what the review had accused the club of in the past; it was damage control to protect the brand rather than a genuine effort to address the fundamental problem.
I am personally sick of the awful history that the club has built for itself around racism, going all the way back to booing the Indigenous greats such as Syd Jackson, Michael Long, Robert Muir and most famously Nicky Winmar.
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Nicky Winmar, a Noongar man, famously lifted his guernsey and pointed at his skin in a 1993 match against Collingwood.
Credit:Wayne Ludbey
I once went to Marvel Stadium as a guest of one of Collingwoodâs inner sanctum group only to be astonished to hear a member hurling racial abuse at a Western Bulldogs player in front of everybody. When I took him on, he said he paid big money for his special seat and he could say whatever he liked.
Eddie McGuire speaking to reporters on Monday. Speaking at Collingwood s AGM on Tuesday evening, McGuire conceded he should not have referred to Monday as a proud day for the club. I got it wrong, McGuire said. I said it was a proud day, and I shouldn t have. I meant to sincerely acknowledge not only the enormous work the club had done, especially Jodie Sizer and Peter Murphy, in bringing this report together. But also the report of all our staff and their preparedness to take a deep and uncompromising look into our past as a club. I did not mean we were proud of past incidents of racism and the hurt that it caused, I am not. It s been interpreted widely that way, and I regret that deeply.