Tom Rockliff’s Twitter gaffe has angered Brisbane as speculation intensifies about whether he might leave the AFL club.

Rockliff apologised for the derogatory comment about a woman and Lions chief executive Greg Swann has criticised him publicly.

“It’s not helpful for us and it’s not helpful for him, especially with everything that’s happening, all the discussions, he’s been in the limelight a bit. It just wasn’t very clever,” Swann told 3AW.

“If you’re going to be captain of the football club, you don’t want to be involved in things like this.

“About 60 per cent of our staff are women.

“We are having a women’s footy team and we work closely with all the women in our organisation.”

It emerged that earlier this week, Rockliff rated a woman “at least a three out of 10” in a conversation with friends on the social media website.

Brisbane are yet to decide on the futures of Rockliff and fellow star Pearce Hanley.

While Rockliff could well stay with the Lions, Hanley reportedly has visited Gold Coast’s facilities.

On Friday, list manager Peter Schwab said one of Hanley’s issues is that he has had little success during his time at Brisbane.

“I think Pearce, to be honest, is probably (suffering) a bit of losers’ fatigue with Brisbane,” Schwab told SEN.

“He’s been there a fair while and has been frustrated that we haven’t had success. I think that’s part of it.

“But we haven’t categorically stated that we’re going to get rid of Pearce at all. It’s just an interest expressed from a few clubs because he’s a good talent.”