What\u2019s more, some suggest the league may have railroaded Sydney CEO Matthew Pavlich into taking the blame<\/a> after the AFL was referred for investigation by the Royal Commission into antisemitism. <\/p>\n Are we to believe that Pavlich, who graduated from reading an autocue as a sports presenter in Perth to become the Swans CEO, took it upon himself to remove any reference to Jews from a statement about a terror attack that targeted Jews?<\/a> All in the name of \u201cinclusion\u201d? <\/p>\n The whole thing is utterly absurd.<\/p>\n In the end it really doesn\u2019t matter if someone at the AFL or at an AFL club made the call. The referral to the RC by Senator James Paterson stands. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is incredibly disappointing to learn that someone at an AFL club believes it was \u2018inclusive\u2019 to remove all references to Jews in a script about the antisemitic Bondi terror attack, whose victims were overwhelmingly Jewish,\u201d Paterson said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is further evidence of deeply ingrained cultural problems in our sporting institutions that must be probed thoroughly by the Royal Commission.\u201d<\/p>\n Imagine that? The relentlessly Leftist, politically correct AFL being a hotbed of institutional anti-Semitism. <\/p>\n It could help explain why the league did little to stand with the Jewish community in the aftermath of the October 7 terrorist attack and the rise in anti-Semitism we have seen across Australia. <\/p>\n Both the AFL and the Swans have a rich history of political posturing and hypocrisy.<\/a><\/p>\n We saw that for a decade when the Swans took part in the annual Pride Game in support for the LGBTQIA+ community while simultaneously being sponsored by Qatar Airlines<\/a> owned by the Qatari government, which mercilessly persecutes members of the LGBTQIA+ community. That little absurdity only ended at the end of the 2025 season when the airline and club parted ways.<\/p>\n Rita is a senior columnist at Herald Sun, and Sky News Australia anchor of The Rita Panahi Show and co-anchor of top-rating Sunday morning discussion program Outsiders.<\/p>\n Born in America, Rita spent much of her childhood in Iran before her family moved to Australia as refugees. She holds a Master of Business, with a career spanning more than two decades, first within the banking sector and the past ten years as a journalist and columnist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AFL must think their fans are dumber than a box of rocks. They really want us to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[271945,217760,638,14405,68067,271961,64,63,689,55,639,89155,12928,3244,271943,271956,271963,271948,7492,271946,271959,271955,271950,46658,77340,271960,26763,19103,673,677,271953,46,271944,271954,271947,271957,271958,271951,271965,43964,271949,271964,47714,271962,85,37877,120749,191938,271952,11166,3439],"class_list":["post-549746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-activist-report","tag-adam-bandt","tag-afl","tag-alastair-clarkson","tag-andrew-gaze","tag-andy-maher","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-bondi-beach","tag-caroline-wilson","tag-chris-fagan","tag-club-parted-ways","tag-deplorable-commentary","tag-eternal-shame","tag-extraordinary-pressure","tag-hawthorn-hawks","tag-heartbreaking-revelations","tag-horror-film","tag-ingrained-cultural-problems","tag-institutional-anti-semitism","tag-james-macpherson","tag-james-paterson","tag-jess-mcguire","tag-jewish-community","tag-matthew-pavlich","tag-new-south-wales","tag-oceania","tag-persecutes-members","tag-perth","tag-political-posturing","tag-political-sporting-body","tag-pre-match-tribute","tag-prolonged-saga","tag-racism-report","tag-racism-scandal","tag-reputational-catastrophe","tag-rich-history","tag-self-serving-allegations","tag-sexist-coercion","tag-sky-news","tag-sporting-institutions","tag-sports","tag-sports-presenter","tag-terror-attack","tag-terrorist-attack","tag-tribute-debacle","tag-veteran-reporter","tag-western-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549746","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=549746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
![\"Rita](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/panahi_rita.png\")
<\/a>Rita Panahi<\/a>Columnist and Sky News host<\/p>\n