The Adam Goodes documentary is a line in the sand for AFL's indigenous players to rally against racism, an indigenous leader in the sport says.
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Goodes' bitter end to his decorated 372-game AFL career is documented in a film to be released publicly on June 7.
The documentary details the dual Brownlow medallist's anguish at being frequently booed by crowds in his last AFL season in 2015.
The AFL's indigenous players and staff were shown the documentary earlier this year, with AFL hierarchy viewing it last week.
Port Adelaide's Aboriginal programs director Paul Vandenbergh says the film is "quite confronting".
"People like Shauny Burgoyne and Eddie Betts stood up afterwards and spoke on behalf of the group with tears in their eyes," Vandenbergh said on Tuesday.
"Talking about not so much the industry not standing up, but we as Aboriginal people didn't stand up for Adam at the time.
"We sort of stayed silent, which was what we were probably really sad about when we watched the doco."
Vandenbergh said the documentary would "shake up" the AFL but had been a catalyst for change in calling out racism in the sport.
"What it kind of created ... we actually drew a line in the sand - enough's enough," he said,
"When one goes down, we all go down."
The commitment was evidenced by the widespread condemnation of racial online abuse of players Liam Ryan, Paddy Ryder, Eddie Betts and Travis Varcoe this season.
"When something has come up online, you have noticed that all the players are jumping on it," Vandenbergh said.
"Some people might say if you don't call it out, it will go away.
"But it was one of those moments ... we actually just wanted to say 'nah, we're not going to allow that to happen again'.
"And, one, we're going to support each other.
"But two, we're going to bring our non-Aboriginal brothers and sisters along this journey with us to bring them closer moving forward."
One of Adelaide's indigenous players, Wayne Milera, said the documentary was powerful.
"It gives a bit of an insight into what actually happened and all the stuff that he (Goodes) actually went through - it's pretty sad to see, it's not a good look," Milera said on Tuesday.
"Certainly from seeing that ... we spoke about how we could have as an indigenous group done better to support Goodesy.
"That is one thing if it does happen again, the whole support of the AFL could be a lot better."
Australian Associated Press
