{"id":718318,"date":"2026-06-06T04:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T04:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/718318\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T04:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T04:46:09","slug":"afl-and-hawks-stand-behind-mabior-chol-after-racial-abuse-on-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/718318\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL and Hawks stand behind Mabior Chol after racial abuse on social media"},"content":{"rendered":"

The AFL and Hawthorn have come out in support of Mabior Chol after the Hawks forward was targeted with racial abuse on social media.<\/p>\n

Warning: This article includes racist language.<\/p>\n

On Instagram, Chol shared a screenshot of a series of abusive messages he received in the wake of the Hawks’ six-point loss to the Western Bulldogs at the MCG on Friday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“You can talk s*** all you want but don’t be like this guy,” Chol said in a caption on his Instagram story.<\/p>\n

He was referring to a post loaded with racist terms and foul abuse, including “piece of f***ing shit” and “Reply ya black dog”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon said Chol had the full support of the league.<\/p>\n

“The AFL strongly condemns the vile and racist social media messages sent to Hawthorn player Mabior Chol following Friday night’s match,” Dillon said in an AFL statement.<\/p>\n

“Racism has no place anywhere, anytime \u2014 not in our game, not in the community and not online. Players, or anyone, should never be subjected to this sort of abuse.<\/p>\n

“To be clear, if you think this behaviour is acceptable, then you are not welcome in our game.<\/p>\n

Bulldogs defender calls out abusive fan<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Sellwood has the last laugh against opponent Nick Watson and a spectator, as the Western Bulldogs toppled Hawthorn in another tense finish.<\/p>\n

“Mabior’s courage to call this out should be commended and our immediate focus is supporting him and the Hawthorn Football Club.<\/p>\n

“The AFL integrity unit will work with the club on this matter.”<\/p>\n

The Hawks also condemned the messages directed at Chol.<\/p>\n

“It is simply not acceptable. There is no place for racism in our game and in our society,” Hawks chief executive Ash Klein said in a club statement.<\/p>\n

“If you are the sort of person who thinks it’s OK to make a comment or send a message like this, we don’t want you as part of our game.<\/p>\n

“We commend Mabior’s courage in calling this out and we stand with him.<\/p>\n

“Our immediate focus is on wrapping our arms around and supporting Mabior.<\/p>\n

“Hawthorn Football Club is working closely with the AFL on this matter.”<\/p>\n

Chol has previously been the target of racial abuse on social media in 2022 when he was playing for the Gold Coast Suns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AFL and Hawthorn have come out in support of Mabior Chol after the Hawks forward was targeted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7814,638,12259,64,63,16118,6854,1202,14402,12911,2966,89641,1314,85,698],"class_list":["post-718318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-abuse","tag-afl","tag-andrew-dillon","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-hawks","tag-hawthorn","tag-instagram","tag-mabior-chol","tag-racial-abuse","tag-racism","tag-racist","tag-social-media","tag-sports","tag-western-bulldogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718318","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=718318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}