The Hawthorn football club says there was never a meeting between one player and a group of coaches which involved them discussing his partner terminating a pregnancy for the good of his career, court documents show.
Documents published by the federal court on Thursday outlined the club’s strong denials of an 89-page statement of claim filed by three former players, two of their partners and a former employee in July.
The group, five of whom are Indigenous, claimed the club unlawfully discriminated against them, including by acting in culturally harmful, stereotyping or domineering ways.
The players are Cyril Rioli, a Norm Smith medalist who won four premierships with the Hawks, Carl Peterson and Jermaine Miller-Lewis. Rioli and Miller-Lewis’s wives, Shannyn Ah Sam-Rioli and Montanah-Rae Lewis, and Leon Egan, who was employed by the club, also sued Hawthorn.
The claims against the Hawks were first reported by the ABC in the week before the 2022 grand final.
One of the most explosive allegations was that a former player had been told he should encourage his partner to terminate her pregnancy for the sake of his career.
In the statement of claim, Peterson was revealed as the player who alleged the conversation took place.
He said in 2009 he was told after training at Hawthorn’s headquarters, Waverley Park, that his coaches wanted to meet with him.
In the statement of claim, Peterson said that Alastair Clarkson, a revered AFL coach who went on to win four premierships with Hawthorn and is now coach of North Melbourne; Chris Fagan, who was employed at the Hawks at the time and is Brisbane’s coach; and another former Hawks employee, Jason Burt, were in a small office waiting for him when he arrived.
Peterson said after some initially friendly and positive discussion about his development as a player, the conversation turned to his partner’s pregnancy.
Peterson said he told Burt days earlier his partner was 11 or 12 weeks pregnant.
Peterson said Burt said in the meeting words to the effect of, “We don’t think you’re ready to be a father”, and Clarkson said, “You need to break up with [your partner] and focus only on your football” and “Unless you break up with her and tell her to terminate the pregnancy, your football career will be in jeopardy.”
In its response to the statement of claim, Hawthorn denied any such meeting with the coaches took place after Peterson spoke to Burt about the pregnancy.
The club said Peterson in fact toured the club with his family in 2019 and sent them an email thanking them for the experience, and also sought and was given four tickets to a Hawks match in Perth later that year.
It also made a series of claims about drug and alcohol use during his career.
Hawthorn agreed that Clarkson did call Rioli “Humphrey B Bear” during his time at the club, but insisted he called multiple players this as a reference to their quietness, and that the label was not because of Rioli’s race.
“Clarkson said to many players words to the effect that they needed to speak and communicate with their teammates on and off the field and not ‘be Humphrey B Bear’,” the Hawks said.
The club called other examples outlined by Rioli of Clarkson using “culturally ignorant” statements “vague and embarrassing”, and denied them on those grounds.
Rioli claimed Clarkson said to him when he was sitting with other Indigenous players words to the effect of: “Oh all the brother boys together”, “Why don’t yous come and sit with everyone else?” and “Why are yous always sitting together?”
The Hawks agreed that in 2013, during an end-of-season trip, one non-Indigenous player, Grant Birchall, asked an Indigenous player who is not part of the court action, Bradley Hill, whether his partner was also a “boong”.
The Hawks, however, denied that the club did not act on the comment.
It said that Jarryd Roughead, another non-Indigenous player who was then a member of the team’s leadership group, overheard the comment and immediately told Birchall the term he had used was offensive and inappropriate, comforted Hill, and “facilitated Birchall apologising to Hill”.
The Hawks also agreed that during a visit to Alice Springs in 2017 Clarkson said to Rioli words to the effect of, “Why do these Aboriginals have darker skin than you?”
It also admitted then-president of the club and former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett asked Ah Sam-Rioli in 2018, “Can’t you afford to buy thread” in reference to the designer ripped jeans she was wearing.
“I’ll give you change so you can afford to buy thread to stitch those jeans up,” Kennett said.
The Hawks said while they agreed the comments occurred, they “were the same comments Kennett had made to a number of non-Indigenous people who wore ripped jeans, and the comments were an attempt at humour and were not motivated by race”.
The six individuals suing the club are expected to respond to Hawthorn’s latest claims at a later date.
The Human Rights Commission terminated the case in May, finding there was little chance of an agreement between the individuals who are now suing the club and Hawthorn.
The AFL announced last year there would be no adverse findings against Clarkson, Fagan or Burt after an independent panel investigated claims of racism at Hawthorn between 2008 and 2016.
The trio have always denied all wrongdoing.
