{"id":113474,"date":"2025-09-02T15:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T15:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/113474\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T15:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T15:39:09","slug":"adelaide-crows-izak-rankine-breaks-silence-after-homophobic-slur-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/113474\/","title":{"rendered":"Adelaide Crows’ Izak Rankine breaks silence after homophobic slur saga"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adelaide<\/a> star Izak Rankine broke his silence on the homophobic slur saga<\/a> after returning from overseas on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Rankine, who received a four-game suspension for directing a homophobic slur at a Collingwood player last month, landed at Adelaide Airport and then read out a prepared statement in front of media.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old, who had fled to Italy for a vacation, did not take any questions.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Origin gun dropped for ‘breach of standards’; Wallaby to debut<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Rabbitohs lift lid on how Smith’s reacted to firestorm<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Irony’ in Hayne’s fresh ‘cheated’ slap over Storm cap rort<\/a><\/p>\n

“I want to start by saying how deeply sorry I am,” said Rankine, who was visibly emotional.<\/p>\n

“What I said, there was no excuse. It was wrong, and I take full responsibility.<\/p>\n

“I’m disappointed in myself, and I know I’ve let a lot of people down.<\/p>\n

“I want to apologise to anyone that I’ve hurt [or] offended.<\/p>\n

\"Izak<\/p>\n

Izak Rankine reading out a prepared statement.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

“I understand that word is offensive, it’s harmful, it’s hurtful, and it has no place in our game or our society.<\/p>\n

“I am in no way a victim, but going away has given me the space to reflect and educate myself to understand the weight of my mistake, and I’m fully committed to bettering myself in that area.”<\/p>\n

Before flying out to Italy, Rankine reportedly called Ebony Marinoff, one of Adelaide’s AFLW co-captains, as well as Crows AFLW player Chelsea Randall, who is openly gay, to apologise.<\/p>\n

But he did not stand in front of the men’s or women’s squads to apologise, nor address the public, before flying out.<\/p>\n

He drew backlash for failing to do so, including from former Adelaide captain Rory Sloane, who said he had “missed a massive opportunity to take ownership”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday night, Rankine said he would address the men’s and women’s squads in the coming days.<\/p>\n

“In the next few days, I’ll be standing in front of my [Crows] teammates, the AFLW [squad] and apologising to them personally, as they deserve this at the very least,” Rankine said.<\/p>\n

The AFL originally decided on a five-game ban, but downgraded it to four matches after Adelaide put forward “compelling medical submissions”, in the words of AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon.<\/p>\n

Adelaide had been pushing for a three-game suspension.<\/p>\n

Rankine will only play again this season if Adelaide loses its qualifying final against Collingwood, then wins its semi-final and preliminary final to reach the grand final.<\/p>\n

The only game he is a chance to feature in over the remainder of this season, at this stage, is the grand final.<\/p>\n

“From here, all I can do is put my head down, work hard, support my teammates in the best way I can, and show through my actions that I’m growing and learning from my mistake,” Rankine said.<\/p>\n

“More than anything, I want this club to succeed, so I’ll be doing everything I can to gain everyone’s trust back, and have a positive impact on society and my supporters.<\/p>\n

“Thank you.”<\/p>\n

In a statement last month, the AFL said Rankine had used “a highly offensive homophobic slur against a Collingwood opponent \u2014 language that demeans and denigrates people regardless of their sexuality”.<\/p>\n

He was ordered to undertake further Pride in Sport training in addition to serving a four-game ban.<\/p>\n

Rankine became the sixth AFL-listed player to be sanctioned for using a homophobic slur over the past two seasons, after Jeremy Finlayson, Wil Powell, Lance Collard, Jack Graham and Riak Andrew.<\/p>\n

Each of those players received suspensions ranging from three to six matches, depending on factors such as the severity of the slur and whether they self-reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide star Izak Rankine broke his silence on the homophobic slur saga after returning from overseas on Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-113474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}