Opinion Jake NiallChief Football Editor, The Age July 26, 2026 – 5:30 a.m. July 26, 2026 – 5:30 a.m. Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. TOTOTO When Adam Goodes was booed, week after week, to the point that the champion became disillusioned
Opinion
When Adam Goodes was booed, week after week, to the point that the champion became disillusioned with the game, the onus fell on the AFL to stop the booing.
Goodes had been booed by sections of fans from almost every club except his own. The extent to which the booing was racially motivated was questioned, but it was clear to me that Goodes had been booed, in large part, because he had taken the initiative to speak out about indigenous issues and racism, following an incident in which he was racially abused by a 13-year-old girl at a Collingwood game on national television and highlighted.
The booing was relentless throughout 2014 and 2015. Goodes, who had not been booed for the first 300 games of his career, had been named Australian of the Year before the unseemly booing occurred.
The AFL was slow to get it right and it got it wrong, in what was Gillon McLachlan’s worst episode, when the then AFL chief executive sought to balance the different strands of opinion within the game (including the AFL Commission) rather than claiming that the boos of Goodes were offensive and finding ways to trample him.
More than a decade since his retirement, Goodes remains in exile.
Today, it is the Adelaide Crows, and not the AFL, who have primary responsibility for persuading a mob to stop booing an opposition footballer, Isaac Quaynor, as a result of an incident that took place on the field, the ripples in the pond of which extended far beyond the boundary line.
Unlike the Goodes situation, this drama is limited to the fans of one club, those of Adelaide. The victim of the booing is not so much Quaynor, although he is certainly unwelcome for the Collingwood defender. There are many offended people within the gay community.
It is more difficult to confront the behavior of some fans than that of players and officials. This was graphically demonstrated during the Goodes saga.
But this does not exempt Adelaide Crows from responsibility; At the very least, they should do everything they can to stop the Quaynor boos next time they play Collingwood.
It could happen in six weeks, in the final series of 2026. Or next year.
Some of the booers will claim that they are not booing Quaynor out of homophobia, just as crowds felt that booing Goodes was due to staging or some other alleged failing of the champion.
It’s true that many Crow booers will see Quaynor as a snitch, whose testimony deprived them of Izak Rankine during last year’s final. Some may have drank a skin full of beers. Some might blame the AFL and the dark Victorian conspiracy against their club.
If there was plausible deniability for the initial booing – “we’re booing him because he doubled Rankine” – that excuse won’t cut it when gays, bisexuals and lesbians, including some openly lesbian AFLW Adelaide players, are offended and see the booing of Quaynor as a collective snub.
Matthew Nicks had tried to discourage fans from booing before the game. Unfortunately, the coach’s exhortation was not heeded.
But Nicks’ choice of words, and even those of the club after their defeat, missed the mark with Mitch Brown, the AFL’s first (former) openly bisexual player, who felt the booing was a version of homophobia and that the Adelaide coach had not been strong enough in his condemnation.
“If you want it to be [stamped] If you look down the barrel of that camera and say, “We don’t tolerate this.” [it would be more impactful] …who are you trying to protect when you say, ‘It’s an exciting game’?
Brown suggested that Nicks didn’t want fans to hate him for criticizing them.
The counterpoint to Nicks in the Goodes imbroglio was then Fremantle coach Ross Lyon and former West Coast chief executive Trevor Nisbett. Both club leaders were frank in telling their own members and fans that if they booed Goodes it was unacceptable.
“If you continue to boo Adam Goodes, then you are racist and bigoted,” Lyon said.
It is commendable that Lyon and Nisbett were willing to risk a backlash from members, and their stance made some difference when the AFL was asleep at the wheel.
Adelaide can show similar leadership, if she so chooses. The first step is a change of language, without the qualifications of “passionate” fans.
An admitted complication in homophobic cases in the AFL, which have proliferated since 2024 (mainly in games at VFL level), when players began denouncing the use of the F-word, is that the victim’s sexual preference is not necessarily gay or bisexual (generally not) and is a private identity, when a person’s race is almost invariably visible or known.
The AFL investigation into the Rankine insult was not handled in a way that defused homophobic tension.
Rankine was offered a five-match suspension, prompting the Crows to fight hard against the level of sanction, eventually reducing it to four matches. Club president John Olsen called his AFL counterpart Richard Goyder as part of the lobbying process.
It is the view of this column that the AFL’s escalation of sanctions, from three matches to four or five, was reckless and counterproductive as it encouraged clubs to seek out lawyers and fight them in the dock.
If the sanction for homophobic insults had been three games, as Jeremy Finlayson received in the first incident in 2024, there would be less forceful opposition and, no less important, the person who received the insult would not be the target of hateful fans.
What can the Ravens do from here? Treatment is always more difficult than diagnosis. But they can start with unequivocal statements.
ABC’s Corbin Middlemas, who is openly gay, was another who felt Adelaide needed to be firmer in condemning her own tribe. He floated (on Fox Footy) the more drastic idea that the AFL could stop the Crows from hosting Collingwood for a few years, coming down to the bottom line.
One lesson from the Goodes saga was that fans can be influenced by their own star players. If Shaun Burgoyne was pained to hear Goodes booed by Hawthorn supporters (Burgoyne said he “hated boos”), the brown and gold booers might desist.
Jordan Dawson, who spoke to the AFL Players’ Association on Friday, is an eloquent and thoughtful leader who can speak directly on camera.
The Crows, along with Port Adelaide, deployed player power to try to prevent anti-social behavior at Showdown games. The results were mixed.
Within the Crows, there was an understanding that when the Rankine-Quaynor incident broke out in August, this could well be a dark cloud hanging over the club for two or three years.
One would hope it doesn’t extend to the final if they face Collingwood, or until next year. Now it is necessary to act, even if only with the right words.
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Jake Niall is a Walkley Award-winning sports journalist and AFL editor-in-chief for The Age.Connect through X either email.From our partners
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