Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.
That’s the philosophy I was always advised in my childhood to adopt if other kids said rude or unkind things about me. It was indeed a widely accepted general wisdom. Plenty of people said rude or nasty things about other people, especially in sport.
There was a time when sledging was considered something of a fine art, especially in test cricket, where the leisurely pace allowed for more considered, possibly more wittily devasting verbal sallies intended to discombobulate one’s opponents.
Ah, the good old days. Nowadays, certain kinds of sledging are strictly taboo. Adelaide Crows player Izak Rankine was suspended for four matches for what the media has been coyly describing as a homophobic slur against Collingwood player Isaac Quaynor.
The suspension would have ruled him out of the finals, had Adelaide managed to stay in. They didn’t, but that’s not the point.
Rankine is not on his own by any means. In the past two seasons 6 players have been penalised for homophobic slurs, most recently in July when West Coast player Jack Graham copped a similar four-match suspension.
It’s hard to get a straight answer from Google about what he said, but it’s widely accepted that he used the same word as Rankine did: f**got.
Now I’m not saying you should go round insulting people because of their sexuality or for any other reason.
But a couple of things worry me. Number one being that rapper Snoop Dogg, to whom the AFL is paying a reported $2.5 million to perform at this year’s Grand Final, has used that exact same word in the past, both on social media and in his lyrics, not to mention other words that are rude and sexist.
Isn’t that a bit hypocritical? The AFL defended its decision by saying the Dogg is a changed man who has repented his ways. But bearing in mind that Jack Graham dobbed himself in and it wasn’t Isaac Quaynor who complained about what Rankine said, surely this is harsh on the local boys?
Number two: what CAN you say now in the heat of a footy game? Are all insults banned? Are players allowed to use those time-honoured sledges d**khead and f**kwit or any of their familiar variations that you would hear any day of the week in schoolyards and sports grounds all over the country?
The AFL rule under which Rankine and Graham were penalised prohibits conduct that is unbecoming, likely to prejudice the interests or reputation of the AFL or likely to bring the game of football into disrepute.
They could also have been charged under rule 35, which prohibits any person subject to the rules from acting or speaking in a way that threatens, disparages or insults another person, including based on race, religion, colour, descent, national or ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
In other words, anyone subject to the rules is forbidden to insult anyone on any basis whatsoever. You could argue that calling someone a d***head or a f***wit is insulting them on the basis of disability. It certainly disparages them. So those young kids on training day bad-mouthing each other could find themselves on a charge, because the rules apply to anyone associated with the game at any level.
It’s not just players who are subject to the rules. Remember the incident in 2013 when a 13-year-old girl was marched out of the stadium in full public view for calling Adam Goodes an ape?
Yes, it was wrong. No, she shouldn’t have done it, but did she deserve that humiliation? Surely a firm word of warning would have been more salutary, both for her and for the accompanying adults from whom she no doubt picked up that language.
The crowd wasn’t happy about it. Nor were they happy about what happened to Izak Rankine. At the crucial match in Adelaide on September 4, Crows fans booed Collingwood player Isaac Quaynor, the one Rankine had called a f**got. It was nasty and also unfair, since as mentioned it wasn’t Quaynor who complained about it.
It’s bad behaviour for sure, but you have to wonder if the fans are unhappy that only certain types of insults – to do with race and sexuality – get jumped on. That’s certainly the impression you get online. Why not just call him a c**t and a m***herf**ker, reads one very rude comment. He would have got away with that.
This article was published in the New Norfolk News and Derwent Valley Gazette on 19.9.25