Former Collingwood football star Heritier Lumumba has spoken about about his experiences with racism at the club in a new documentary.
The explosive claims include allegations that his Magpies teammates gave him the nickname ‘chimp’ and that Collingwood was a ‘boys’ club for racist and sexist jokes’.
Footage from the new documentary on Lumumba’s life titled Fair Game contains an emotional account of his clash with coach Nathan Buckley.
Former Collingwood football star Heritier Lumumba (pictured) has spoken about about his experiences with racism at the club in a new documentary
Footage from the new documentary on Lumumba’s life titled Fair Game contains an emotional account of his clash with coach Nathan Buckley (pictured)
‘I walked into his office, and I said, “Are you f***ing serious? You are an insensitive f***! Your problem is you’re a fantastic coach, you have fantastic football knowledge but you lack sensitivity and you lack emotional intelligence”,’ Lumumba claims to have told Buckley.
The alleged meeting was held over claims of racist and sexist banter at the club in 2014, Nine News reported.
Lumumba says there was a homophobic poster in the dressing rooms and he was given a racist nickname.
‘There was plenty of joking around, you’re trying to find your place within the club, so you would be honoured to get a nickname,’ he said.
‘I walked into his office, and I said, “Are you f***ing serious? You are an insensitive f***!”,’ Lumumba (pictured) says he told Buckley
Lumumba (pictured) claims he was given the nickname ‘chimp’ by some of his teammates
‘To some, mine was the nickname “chimp”.’
The former All-Australian left the Magpies in 2014 after 199 games and believes his criticism of club president Eddie McGuire resulted in his departure.
‘I’m extremely disappointed with Eddie’s comments and do not care what position he holds, I disagree with what came out his mouth this morning on radio,’ he tweeted.
His comment was a response to McGuire’s gaffe about Adam Goodes promoting the musical King Kong.
Lumumba says Collingwood (pictured) was a ‘boys’ club for racist and sexist jokes’ during his time there
The former All-Australian left the Magpies in 2014 after 199 games and believes his criticism of club president Eddie McGuire (pictured) resulted in his departure
Lumumba claims that afterwards he was treated as if he has done the wrong thing and people at the club almost acted like McGuire was the victim.
Nathan Buckley addressed Lumumba’s claims in a press conference after Collingwood’s loss to Geelong on Saturday.
‘It’s a bit sad in many ways that “H’ feels that way about his experiences in the game and he’s been a great contributor to our footy club for a decade,’ he said.
‘I tried to support him as best I could in my role as teammate, captain and then as line coach and senior coach.’
Buckley also claimed that he never heard Lumumba called ‘chimp’, saying, ‘I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear it.’
Fair Game will debut on SBS On Demand on Sunday, August 27 and appear on SBS on Sunday, September 3 at 9.45pm.
Lumumba claims that afterwards he was treated as if he has done the wrong thing and people at the club almost acted like McGuire (pictured) was the victim