{"id":91275,"date":"2025-08-24T01:37:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T01:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/91275\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T01:37:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T01:37:04","slug":"izak-rankine-flees-the-country-in-wake-of-four-match-afl-ban-for-homophobic-slur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/91275\/","title":{"rendered":"Izak Rankine flees the country in wake of four-match AFL ban for homophobic slur"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adelaide<\/a> star Izak Rankine has taken extraordinary lengths to escape the spotlight in the wake of his AFL<\/a> ban, flying overseas for a week-long getaway.<\/p>\n

7NEWS can reveal Rankine departed Adelaide on Friday night and transited through Italy after being granted an extended leave of absence from the club.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s understood he will train at a European facility to prepare him for an unlikely grand final berth.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today \"Download<\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Rankine was hit with a four-match ban for a vile homophonic slur<\/a> directed at an opposition player in last week\u2019s win over Collingwood.<\/p>\n

He will only be free to play in this year\u2019s decider should the Crows lose the first week of finals then win the semi and preliminary finals.<\/p>\n

Rankine was in the air as his teammates defeated North Melbourne on Saturday to secure the minor premiership.<\/p>\n

Adelaide successfully argued the ban down from five weeks to four on the back of \u201ccompelling medical submissions\u201d, centred on his mental health.<\/p>\n

The AFL on Thursday confirmed the ban, and that Rankine will also have to undertake further Pride in Sport training.<\/p>\n

AFL CEO Andrew Dillon didn\u2019t elaborate on the compelling submission when facing the media on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look at the specific instances, and in this one there were submissions made, including compelling medical submissions that were taken into account when arriving at the sanction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dillon also said the timing of the incident with it being on the eve of the finals played no part in the final outcome.<\/p>\n

Crows coach Matthew Nicks said this week a lot of people would be \u201cdoing it tough\u201d in the wake of Rankine\u2019s four-match suspension, but that his star player shouldn\u2019t be portrayed as the victim.<\/p>\n

Nicks said while he and the club were offering Rankine every support, there was no excuse for his slur directed at an opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIzak has got some great support around him,\u201d Nicks told reporters on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has acknowledged where he went wrong and he\u2019s worked his way through that in the right manner.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe understands that we have got to be better in that space.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he\u2019s not the victim in this. And by no means do we want that to be looked at that way \u2014 and he knows that.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Izak Rankine \u2018not the victim\u2019 in homophobic slur scandal<\/p>\n

3 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

AFL leaders brutally ripped to shreds by everyone: \u2018Laughable\u2019<\/p>\n

7 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide star Izak Rankine has taken extraordinary lengths to escape the spotlight in the wake of his AFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[9126,638,64,63,55,639,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-91275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-adelaide-crows","9":"tag-afl","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australian-football-league","13":"tag-australianfootballleague","14":"tag-sport","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91275","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=91275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}