Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett has admitted the club has made mistakes in the past but insists neither he or his club are racist following allegations made by former player Cyril Rioli and his wife, Shannyn.
In a report published by The Age earlier this month, the couple spoke out about their fractured relationship with Hawthorn, and how Cyril’s final years leading up to his shock retirement were overshadowed by several purported racial incidents off the field.
Breaking his silence on the matter, Kennett last week penned a letter on the Hawks’ website that addressed the report and pledged “further inquiries to see if there might have been other incidents affecting our past First Nations players”.
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Speaking at the Hawks’ president’s lunch before the team played the Saints at the MCG on Sunday night, Kennett said he was confident that current players feel comfortable and empowered to report any incidents of racism to senior members of staff, including the club’s newly instated indigenous officer.
“We are, Hawthorn are, doing what we can to listen, to learn what has happened in the past but, right now, we are very much convinced, although we may still trip up, that over the last few years that our players feel not only safe at Hawthorn, culturally safe, but they feel so safe that if something was said or done that they thought caused them harm, they would be confident to go and report it to any number of senior people at the club,” he said.
“That is a real test because in days gone by, some of those issues were not reported, so you weren’t able to deal with it because people kept them to themselves.”
President of the club for 13 years over two periods since 2005, Kennett renounced any culture of racism at Hawthorn, instead criticising the reporting of Rioli’s story.
“I do not accept and I completely, absolutely, utterly reject that I am in any way racist. It’s an awful slur for anyone to have to bear,” he said.
“And nor is our club racist and nor do I think the AFL community is racist, nor St Kilda. But we have a job to do and we have to keep working hard to improve the circumstances of our first people.
“We are in a good place. Hawthorn is in a good place. Have we made some mistakes? Yes, we have. Have I made some mistakes? Yes, I have. But at the end of the day the strength of the whole is more important than the motivations of some journalists.
“There are people, and today is not the day and that will be another story in due course, about the story that came out last Saturday and what I consider the disregard for the people that they have reported on.
“We have been trying for a long time to get Cyril and Shannyn back among our ranks and we will continue to try and get them back here. I had an email from Cyril as late as January 23 wanting to talk but, sadly, we haven’t spoken since, although we have tried.”
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