Club president Eddie McGuire has labelled this “a historic and proud day for the Collingwood Football Club” in the wake of the release of a report which found the club was guilty of “distinct and egregious” systemic racism and called for sweeping structural change.

The report, which was commissioned independently by Collingwood, said there was a gap between what the club “stands for and what it does” and found its processes for dealing with internal reports of racism were inadequate.

“We have spent the last six years in a deep dive into how we can make ourselves better, provide leadership and conversation in the community as only Collingwood can,” McGuire said.

“We have decided as a club that this fight against racism and discrimination is where we want to be.

“We make mistakes, we learn, we strive to be better.

“We commissioned this report not to pay lip services to a worldwide tragedy, but to lay the foundations for our game, our people and our community.”

The report said Collingwood was more likely to react to media coverage of a racist incident, for the purpose of damage control, than to a complaint made from within the club.

Collingwood received the report in December last year but had not made any comment on it until it was leaked by the media on Monday morning.

“This is not criticism, this is a review,” McGuire said.

“It’s very strong because we asked the organisation to go as hard as they possibly could to give us the base to build the future of this club.

“We wanted to seize the moment, to look at what is happening in world affairs over the last 12 months and to put ourselves in front of things.”

McGuire said he would not stand down from his post early, and would see out his final year as president of Collingwood.

More to come.



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