AFL talent manager Chris Johnson fears the stabbing of Essendon’s Nathan Lovett-Murray will put a negative slant on the league’s indigenous round.

The Brisbane triple-premiership player, who is leading a group of young indigenous men through a football and business development camp Football Means Business this week, said history suggested it was negative stories involving indigenous people that grabbed most attention.

“You’re always concerned for his health more than anything and hopefully he’s okay – that’s the biggest thing,” Johnson told AAP on Wednesday.

“But if we look at trends, the trend would be that most people will run with the bad news story rather than all the good stuff that’s going on this week.”

Johnson urged people not to let Lovett-Murray’s stabbing cause them to overlook positive indigenous stories such as the 20th anniversary of former St Kilda player Nicky Winmar taking his famous stand against racism.

“This is a classic case of one thing not going as planned and everyone jumping on it, rather than looking at a program like this Footy Means Business and the stuff that Nicky’s done through the week and the stuff that the AFL’s doing and people within the community,” Johnson said.

“I hope that people can put it on the backburner and actually start looking at what the positives are instead of always the traditional negative stories all the time about indigenous people.

“Why should one little negative thing override all the great positive stuff that so many indigenous people within the community are trying to work towards?”