Racist fans should expect their fellow AFL supporters to turn on them, AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou says.
The AFL boss is pleased supporters helped identify a Hawthorn supporter who was racially abusing North Melbourne players during Sunday’s match.
The man was ejected from the MCG match and subsequently issued a penalty notice by Victoria police.
“There is no place for any discrimination in not just our game, but in society,” Demetriou told reporters in Adelaide on Wednesday.
“And the sooner people wake up to themselves, that it will be their fellow supporters that turn on them, the better. And that is what’s happening.”
No North Melbourne or Hawthorn players heard the weekend abuse.
Demetriou felt a major shift last year in Collingwood’s Dale Thomas’ “significant moment” of dobbing in a Magpie supporter for racial abuse.
“This is how far people have moved,” he said.
“And if people want to continue to go down the track of discriminating against people, abusing them, or vilifying them, then there will be no place for them in the game.
“They won’t come to games, they won’t be tolerated. They may as well just chuck in their membership and follow something else.”