Adam Goodes walked away from his stellar AFL career due to the abuse he constantly suffered and is now the subject of a powerful new film
Great sportsmen divide their lives into little boxes. A ruthless competitive drive goes into one box, a corporate smile in another, a life away from the tangled business of sport belongs to a more private compartment. The best can do this easily and Adam Goodes, the former
Australian rules footballer, belonged among the elite. Goodes twice won the Brownlow medal, awarded each season to the best
Football player in the country. He won two Premierships with the
Sydney Swans and played more games in the Australian Football League than any other Indigenous footballer. In 2014 he was named Australian of the Year.
Goodes is now 40 and, four years ago, persistent racial abuse forced his early retirement. He was still an imperious player but he could no longer bear the hurt whenever he was booed and taunted with the certainty that it was fuelled by racism. Last year the AFL apologised to Goodes for failing to intervene. That apology, sparked by two powerful documentaries about the way he had been hounded from the game, arrived too late.