“There was no excuse. It was wrong and I take full responsibility,” Rankine said.<\/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
In a short but emotional statement, the 25-year-old said he was “disappointed” in himself and acknowledged he had “let a lot of people down”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Adelaide Crows star Izak Rankine has spoken publicly about the homophobic slur he used. (ABC News: Dean Faulkner)<\/p>\n
But he insisted he was in “no way a victim” and said he would soon be delivering a similar message of contrition to all his Crows teammates as he worked to gain “everyone’s trust back”.<\/p>\n
“In the next few days I’ll be standing in front of my teammates, the AFLW, and apologising to them personally as they deserve this at the very least,” he said.<\/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
Rankine did not take questions at what was a tightly controlled media appearance at the airport’s hotel.<\/p>\n
It began with him entering the room in the presence of club staff, and ended with him being led from the room in the same manner.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rankine entered and left the room flanked by club staff. (ABC News: Dean Faulkner)<\/p>\n
His arrival at the airport came more than a week after he left Australia on a club-approved overseas trip in the aftermath of the penalty.<\/p>\n
It is understood he travelled to Italy to avoid the spotlight in the lead-up to the club’s upcoming qualifying final against Collingwood at Adelaide Oval on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Adelaide Crows CEO Tim Silvers \u2014 who previously said that while Rankine had “put himself into this position”, he had been “doing it pretty tough” \u2014 today elaborated on the reasons for Rankine’s departure.<\/p>\n
“The reason we did that was basically just for his welfare, just to get him through what’s been a rough time for him,” Silvers told ABC Radio Adelaide this morning.<\/p>\n
“He obviously brought this situation onto himself, and is very remorseful for that.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rankine left Australia with the backing of the Crows shortly after the penalty was handed down. (ABC News: Dean Faulkner)<\/p>\n
Last month, Rankine was handed a four-week ban for the slur against a Magpies player during the sides’ round 23 clash.<\/p>\n
The AFL said its integrity unit found Rankine had used “highly offensive” language “that demeans and denigrates people regardless of their sexuality”.<\/p>\n
In a statement released by the Crows at the time of the ban, Rankine apologised over the remark and said he was committed to “educating myself”.<\/p>\n
But he tonight publicly spoke at greater length, saying he wanted to show “through my actions that I am growing and learning from my mistake”.<\/p>\n
He said his immediate focus was on putting his “head down” and supporting “my teammates in the best way I can”.<\/p>\n
“More than anything I want this club to succeed,” he said.<\/p>\n
“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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide Crows star Izak Rankine has broken his silence on the homophobic slur he directed towards an opponent,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[3443,638,64,63,55,639,6092,63493,17654,58464,80953,17653,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-113598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-adelaide","9":"tag-afl","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australian-football-league","13":"tag-australianfootballleague","14":"tag-crows","15":"tag-homophobia","16":"tag-homophobic","17":"tag-izak-rankine","18":"tag-rankine","19":"tag-slur","20":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113598","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=113598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}