Former AFL player Sam Newman has unleashed an extraordinary spay against ‘woke‘ athletes ‘with low IQs’ who reject million dollar sponsorships over ‘ethical concerns’.
He lashed out at a world ‘being run by patronising and pompous, arrogant people’ claiming it’s creating a ‘ridiculous, woke society of nonsense’.
Newman’s comments follow a host of controversies in recent days involving Netball Australia, cricketer Pat Cummins and celebrity supporters of the Fremantle Dockers.
Speaking on Sky News, Newman said it ‘seems ludicrous’ for Australia’s women’s netball team, the Diamonds, to reject $15million from billionaire miner Gina Rinehart.
‘But it’s just a case of judging everything on its merits, because the price of being virtuous is hypocrisy.
Cricketer Pat Cummins (pictured right with his wife Becky Boston) has objected to Cricket Australia’s $40million sponsorship deal with Alinta Energy due to ‘ethical concerns’
The intersection of sport and politics has come to the fore in the past week with three major conflicts.
A dispute between Netball Australia – which desperately needs funding – and some of its star players over a $15million sponsorship deal with Hancock Prospecting stemmed from shockingly racist statements made by owner Gina Rinehart’s late father Lang Hancock nearly 40 years ago.
Mr Hancock’s 1984 solutions to ‘the Aboriginal problem’ has become a major issue for the Diamonds, particularly squad member Donnell Wallam, who is Indigenous.
‘The ones that are no good to themselves and can’t accept things, the half-castes -and this is where most of the trouble comes,’ Mr Hancock said in the 1984 documentary film Couldn’t Be Fairer.
Diamonds squad member Donnell Wallam (centre) is pictured playing for the Queensland Firebirds against the Adelaide Thunderbirds on April 17, 2022, in Brisbane
‘I would dope the water up so that they were sterile and would breed themselves out in future and that would solve the problem.’
Meanwhile, Australia’s cricket captain Pat Cummins has been called a hypocrite for starring in an ad campaign for Alinta Energy a year before he objected to Cricket Australia’s $40million sponsorship deal with the company due to ‘ethical concerns’.
And the AFL has also attracted the attention of climate crusaders.
Natural gas exporter Woodside Energy has been a major Fremantle Dockers sponsor for almost 13 years but some high-profile fans, including author Tim Winton and former WA premier Carmen Lawrence, have urged to club to end the agreement.
All of these actions are grist to the mill for Newman, who is never shy about expressing his opinions.
He said he ‘wouldn’t wear a certain sports jersey if I didn’t agree with what was on the front of it’ but ‘for the netballers to arc up at not taking sponsorship dollars from Gina Rinehart seems ludicrous,’ he said on Wednesday.
He said the rejection of money from Ms Rinehart ‘is guilt by association from her father, who I think made those comments, whatever they were, 40 years ago’.
Newman said ‘people with low IQs (are) telling (Netball Australia) which is on its knees financially that they won’t accept… sponsorship deals from a company’ whose products the use ‘on a daily basis’.
Donnell Wallam (pictured) is an up and coming member of the Australian Diamonds squad
‘It’s just fraught with danger, all this nonsense,’ he said.
Newman also didn’t miss the chance to have a crack at Cummins over his ‘ethical concerns’ about Cricket Australia’s deal with Alinta Energy.
‘If you think fossil fuels are going to disappear in the very near future you’re mistaken because that’s the end of the civilised world as we know it, no matter what you think of the climate, no matter what you think of global warming,’ Newman said.
He added that he noticed ‘one of the netball people said they weren’t happy with Hancock industries because of their climate record.
‘Seriously, the world we live in is being run by patronising and pompous, arrogant people who have no idea really what they’re on about.
‘(They) make the rest of the people who enjoy life as it is – although we all try to be responsible – (they) make it a nightmare.’
Australia’s cricket captain Pat Cummins (pictured) has been called a hypocrite for starring in an ad campaign for Alinta Energy a year before he objected to Cricket Australia’s $40million sponsorship deal with the company over ‘ethical concerns’
Sky News host Chris Kenny put it to Newman that the solution is that if sport stars don’t agree with the sponsors of their game, they should just not play.
But Newman didn’t quite agree with this, saying he ‘wouldn’t wear a political slogan on my jumper if I didn’t agree with it’.
‘But the passive, benign company logo of something that produces iron ore, or produces energy that you mightn’t agree with, it’s just such a simplistic thing,’ he added.
Newman said those running sporting teams and codes owe a ‘duty of care’ to ‘say to the rank and file before they sign them up, “We’re going to have Alinta Energy or Hancock mining sponsor us, have you got any problems with it?”
‘And if they have you could actually sort it out before they did the deal,’ he said.
Ultimately, though, Newman said if he was Gina Rinehart – ‘I would take my 15 million bucks and say “stick it.”‘
Amy Parmenter of the Australian Diamonds passes the ball during the Constellation Cup match against the New Zealand Silver Ferns at John Cain Arena on October 19, 2022 in Melbourne
Kenny asked Newman about Tim Winton and Carmen Lawrence wanting the Fremantle Dockers to drop energy giant Woodside from sponsoring them, which he said would cause financial angst for the club they claim to love.
Newman didn’t answer that directly, instead slamming the AFL in general.
‘If I could just go a step further (about) the feigned indignation of the AFL who insist on telling us to be the moral arbiters of what we believe in.
‘I’ve said this before. At the AFL grand final we had three references to Indigenous Australians.
‘One of them is absolutely appropriate and no one could agree with it more,’ Newman said.
Gina Rinehart (right) is pictured with her father Lang Hancock, who started the company Hancock Prospecting. His comments from an 1984 interview have angered members of the Diamonds team
‘But they had three seperate references… lest we have to be told that we (have to) respect everything that’s going on in the country.
‘They made a Muslim woman (Haneen Zreika of the Giants) the face of the AFLW, and then… she declined (to) wear the gay pride jumper,’ he said.
‘If you get into the political realm in a sporting organisation, you end up creating a hornet’s nest for the people who want nothing more than to go to the football or the sporting event just to watch it for what it is.
‘But they keep forcing this moral code onto us, to perhaps appease their own social prejudices and it turns into a ridiculous, woke society of nonsense.’