Race discrimination commissioner questions AFL's commitment to fighting racism

Warning: this article contains references to offensive and racist language.

Australia's race discrimination commissioner says the AFL is failing in its responsibility to fight against racism aimed at its players.

"If you want to be number one, you should be number one leading work against racism and you're nowhere near that," Giridharan Sivaraman told the Indigenous Affairs Team.

"That would be my message to [AFL boss Andrew] Dillon."

Mr Sivaraman's comments came in response to Dillon's appearance in the final episode of the ABC's documentary series End Game.

Series presenter and former Sydney Swans player Tony Armstrong asked the AFL boss: "Why is [racism] so hard to combat?"

Dillon told Armstrong racism was "a societal issue".

"Maybe it's magnified within the AFL and the sporting arena because of the high-profile nature of it," he said.

But Mr Sivaramam said the league should be doing more to educate its fans.

"Don't pretend that you don't have influence, don't pretend that you're just part of society," he said.

"Accept the responsibility and use that profile and brand to do good."

In May, the AFL removed its executive general manager of inclusion and social policy, Tanya Hosch, as part of a restructure.

In an interview for End Game, a tearful Hosch said she "always said what I think needed to be said".

"[That's] what I believe the Indigenous leaders that have invested in me for a long time would expect of me," she said.

Specific reasons for Hosch's departure were not given by Andrew Dillon over several interviews with the ABC, including for the End Game series.

"My commitment and the AFL's commitment to this work is as strong as it ever has been," he told Armstrong in episode three.

Mr Sivaraman also questioned the AFL's decision to remove Hosch from the organisation.

"The answers [in End Game] on her redundancy were very unsatisfying and to me, they indicate moving in the opposite direction to fighting racism," he said.

The AFL subsequently hired Yawuru woman Taryn Lee as general manager, First Nations engagement and inclusion.

Yothu Yindi Foundation CEO and Tagalaka woman Denise Bowden sits on the AFL Commission.

Since 2021, AFL has mandated development managers for Indigenous players at all clubs.

Lions skipper to the trolls: 'Grow the f*** up'

Players in the AFL are regularly subjected to hate speech online and in some cases, in person.

Brisbane Lions co-captain Lachie Neale described these kinds of attacks on players as a "stain on society".

"It's getting beyond a joke now, the things I've been sent are some of the most horrific messages I've ever seen," he posted on Instagram in April.

"It's a game of football, grow the f*** up."

In July, St Kilda's Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera and Port Adelaide's Jase Burgoyne also called out racist abuse directed at them and their families.

Port Adelaide's Willie Rioli deleted his Instagram account in April after a torrent of abuse from users.

These are just a handful of incidents from the 2025 season alone.

'Do we have a problem with our fan base?'

In the first episode of End Game, Armstrong, a Gamilaroi man, spoke with the Brisbane Lions' Callum Ah Chee about racist abuse he received in 2022

"I got called a monkey," Ah Chee said.

"I've been pretty lucky … a lot of boys have had a lot worse, but seeing my wife upset was pretty hard to take."

The documentary followed Armstrong as he travelled to the UK and US to meet anti-racism campaigners and sportspeople.

One of those was Jonathan Hirshler, CEO and co-founder of Signify.

Signify describes itself as an "ethical" data company and has applied its software to World Cups, Olympics, Wimbledon and the English Premier League.

"Sports organisations are businesses … and they want to protect that brand," Mr Hershler told the Indigenous Affairs Team.

"There's a concern: 'Do we have a problem with our fan base; do we have a problem with our brand?'"

As part of the documentary, Signify analysed the Brisbane Lions's social media accounts across the last two seasons, discovering 148 abusive posts in that period.

"[Posts] that we feel actually break the platform's own guidelines," Mr Hirshler said in the program.

"A lot of sexual abuse being sent … the violent abuse is the one we really do focus on.

"Racism runs through all the messages … some of them are really out of order and disgusting."

Signify's software can track abusive posts in real time, potentially detecting a harmful message directed at a player before they have come off the ground.

Mr Hirshler said sporting bodies his company dealt with had "got over" the idea of dealing with racism as being difficult.

"Their thinking is, the only way to make sure that a brand is protected is to go after this stuff, is to create deterrents and to deal with the problem," he said.

AFL premiers track abuse

Now back-to-back premiers, the Brisbane Lions have been trialling Signify this season, though have used this kind of technology before.

"For several years now, we have run and continue to use an AI-powered comment activation platform called Respondology to moderate and track inappropriate comments across our social media channels," a spokesperson for the Lions said.

"We want to make social a safer place for all our athletes, so we're investing in technology to be more proactive in protecting them."

The increased social media traffic around the grand final means there would likely be a corresponding increase in abusive messages to players.

The Brisbane Lions said they had banned people from attending matches for "inappropriate online conduct" identified by the software and double-checked by human moderators.

Andrew Dillon told Tony Armstrong the AFL would be "judged by our actions" on racism.

Dillon also said he would consider the use of social media monitoring software.

The ABC's Indigenous Affairs Team asked the AFL about the progress in this space.

General manager of corporate affairs Jay Allen said the league had been working with Finnish software company BrandBastion on AFL accounts since February.

"Through a pre-built banned list of terms, words and emojis, an AI model has been trained to automatically detect a comment that doesn't align with AFL community standards," he said.

"In just 8 months, over 2 million comments have been monitored … Of the comments hidden [deleted from public view], 98 per cent have been actioned within 90 seconds."

The AFL did not say how many comments had been hidden and how they failed to meet "community standards".

However, Allen said the "success" of the BrandBastion software meant it would be offered to all 18 clubs, with 12 "onboarding" from November 1.

Race discrimination commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman said he supported the use of this kind of technology to enable the AFL and its clubs to fulfil their duty of care to players.

"Don't expect them to just endure shocking racism as if it's just part of the job," Mr Sivaraman said.

The ABC contacted Meta (which runs Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp), YouTube and TikTok to ask about their anti-racism policies.

"Since the beginning of 2024, we have removed more than 10 million videos and more than 35 million comments in Australia for violating our strict Community Guidelines, including those related to racism and bullying," a spokesperson for TikTok said.

YouTube told the ABC it removed 176,000 videos and terminated 37,000 channels globally for violating its hate speech policies.

Meta did not respond to the ABC's request for comment.

X had no discernible Australian or global press office for the ABC to contact.

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