{"id":823885,"date":"2026-07-25T23:59:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823885\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T23:59:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:59:20","slug":"afl-2026-the-booing-of-isaac-quaynor-from-collingwood-is-on-the-adelaide-crows-to-arrest-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823885\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL 2026: The booing of Isaac Quaynor from Collingwood is on the Adelaide Crows to arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opinion<\/p>\n

\"JakeJake Niall<\/a>Chief football writer, The Age<\/p>\n

July 26, 2026 \u2014 3:30am<\/p>\n

July 26, 2026 \u2014 3:30am<\/p>\n

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When Adam Goodes was booed, week after week, to the point that the champion became disillusioned with the game<\/a>, the responsibility for arresting the boos rested with the AFL.<\/p>\n

Goodes had been booed by sections of supporters from nearly every club, excepting his own. The degree to which the booing was racially motivated was contested, but it was clear to me that Goodes had been booed, to a large extent, because, he had taken up the cudgels of speaking out on Indigenous\/racism issues, following an incident in which he was racially abused<\/a> by a 13-year-old girl at a Collingwood game on national television and highlighted it.<\/p>\n

\"IsaacIsaac Quaynor in action against the Crows at Adelaide Oval.AFL Photos<\/p>\n

The booing was relentless over 2014 and 2015. Goodes, who had not been hooted at for the first 300 or so games of his career, had been made Australian of the Year before the unseemly booing occurred.<\/p>\n

The AFL was slow off the mark and equivocated, in what was Gillon McLachlan\u2019s worst episode<\/a>, as the then AFL chief executive sought to balance the different strands of opinion within the game \u2013 including on the AFL Commission \u2013 rather than stating that the booing of Goodes was offensive and seeking ways to stomp on it.<\/p>\n

More than a decade since his retirement, Goodes remains in exile<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today, it is the Adelaide Crows, rather than the AFL, who hold the primary responsibility for persuading a mob to cease booing an opposition footballer, Isaac Quaynor, as a result of an incident that took place on the field<\/a>, whose ripples in the pond spread far beyond the boundary line.<\/p>\n

Unlike the Goodes situation, this drama is confined to one club\u2019s fans, Adelaide\u2019s. The victim of the booing is not so much Quaynor \u2013 though it is doubtless unwelcome for the Collingwood defender<\/a>. The offended party are many within the gay community.<\/p>\n

It is harder to confront the behaviour of a portion of fans than that of players and officials. This was demonstrated graphically during the Goodes saga.<\/p>\n

But this does not absolve the Adelaide Crows of responsibility; at the least, they must do their utmost to halt the booing of Quaynor the next time they play Collingwood.<\/p>\n

It could happen six weeks from now, in the 2026 finals series. Or next year.<\/p>\n

Some of the booers will assert that they are not hooting Quaynor because of homophobia, just as multitudes reckoned booing Goodes was due to staging or some other supposed failing by the champion.<\/p>\n

It is true that many Crow booers will see Quaynor as a snitch, whose testimony deprived them of Izak Rankine during the finals last year. Some may have had a skinful of beers. Some might blame the AFL and dark Victorian conspiracy against their club.<\/p>\n

\"AdamAdam Goodes is a two-time Brownlow medallist, two-time premiership player, and one of the finest players of the modern era.Joe Armao<\/p>\n

If there was a plausible deniability for the initial booing \u2013 \u201cwe\u2019re booing him because he dobbed on Rankine\u201d \u2013 that excuse will not wash when gay, bisexual and lesbian people, some openly lesbian AFLW Adelaide players included, are offended and view the booing of Quaynor as a collective slight.<\/p>\n

Matthew Nicks had sought to dissuade fans from booing in the lead in to the game. Alas, the coach\u2019s exhortation was not heeded.<\/p>\n

\"InIn the days prior to the game against Collingwood, Matthew Nicks warned Crows fans against booing.AFL Photos<\/p>\n

But Nicks\u2019 choice of words \u2013 and even that of the club after their defeat \u2013 did not hit the mark with Mitch Brown, the first openly bisexual (ex) AFL player, who felt the booing was a version of homophobia and that the Adelaide coach had not been anywhere near strong enough in his condemnation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want it to be [stamped] out, if you look down the barrel of that camera and say, \u2018We do not stand for this\u2019 [it would be more impactful] … who are you trying to protect when you\u2019re being like, \u2018It\u2019s a passionate game\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown suggested Nicks did not want fans to hate him for calling them out.<\/p>\n

The counterpoint to Nicks in the Goodes imbroglio were then Fremantle coach Ross Lyon and long-time West Coast CEO Trevor Nisbett. Both club leaders were forthright in telling their own members and fans that if they booed Goodes, it was unacceptable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you continue to boo Adam Goodes, well you\u2019re a racist and you\u2019re a bigot,\u201d said Lyon.<\/p>\n

Commendably, Lyon and Nisbett were willing to risk a backlash from the membership, and their stance made some difference when the AFL was asleep at the wheel.<\/p>\n

Adelaide can show similar leadership, if they wish. The first step is a shift in language, without the qualifications of \u201cpassionate\u201d fans.<\/p>\n

One admitted complication in homophobic cases in the AFL \u2013 which have proliferated since 2024 (mostly in games at VFL level), as players began to call out the use of the F word \u2013 is that the victim\u2019s sexual preference is not necessarily gay or bisexual (usually not) and is a private identity, when a person\u2019s race is almost invariably visible or known.<\/p>\n

The AFL\u2019s investigation of the Rankine slur was not handled in a way that defused the homophobic strain.<\/p>\n

Rankine was offered a five-match ban, which prompted the Crows to fight hard against the level of sanction, eventually reducing it to four matches. The club chairman John Olsen called his AFL counterpart Richard Goyder, as part of the lobbying process.<\/p>\n

\"NicksNicks speaks with Izak Rankine after the game against Collingwood.Getty Images<\/p>\n

This column\u2019s view is that the AFL\u2019s escalation of sanctions, from three matches to four or five, was unwise and counter-productive, since it encouraged clubs to lawyer up and fight them on the benches.<\/p>\n

Had the sanction for homophobic slurs been three matches, as Jeremy Finlayson received in the first incident in 2024, there would be less forceful opposition, and \u2013 not least \u2013 the person who received the slur would not be as targeted by the hateful fans.<\/p>\n

What can the Crows do from here? Treatment is always more difficult than diagnosis. But they can start with unequivocal statements.<\/p>\n

The ABC\u2019s Corbin Middlemas, who is openly gay, was another who felt Adelaide had to be firmer in condemnation of their own tribe. He floated (on Fox Footy) the more drastic idea that the AFL could bar the Crows from hosting Collingwood for some years, hitting the bottom line.<\/p>\n

One lesson from the Goodes saga was that fans can be influenced by their own star players. If it hurt Shaun Burgoyne to hear Goodes booed by Hawthorn supporters \u2013 Burgoyne said he \u201chated the booing\u201d \u2013 the brown-and-gold booers might desist.<\/p>\n

Jordan Dawson, who spoke to the AFL Players\u2019 Association on Friday, is an articulate and thoughtful leader who can talk directly down the barrel of the camera.<\/p>\n

The Crows, in tandem with Port Adelaide, did deploy player power in seeking to prevent anti-social behaviour at Showdown games. Results were mixed.<\/p>\n

Within the Crows, there was an understanding that when the Rankine-Quaynor incident detonated in August that this could well be a dark cloud that hovered over the club for two or three years.<\/p>\n

One would hope that it doesn\u2019t stretch into the finals if they meet Collingwood, or into next year. Action \u2013 if only in the form of the right words \u2013 is now required.<\/p>\n

Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"JakeJake Niall<\/a> is a Walkley award-winning sports journalist and chief AFL writer for The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opinion Jake NiallChief football writer, The Age July 26, 2026 \u2014 3:30am July 26, 2026 \u2014 3:30am Save…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-823885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823885","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=823885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}