{"id":16398,"date":"2025-08-18T05:21:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T05:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=16398"},"modified":"2025-08-18T05:21:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T05:21:54","slug":"afl-integrity-unit-investigate-izak-rankine-over-alleged-homophobic-slur-afl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=16398","title":{"rendered":"AFL integrity unit investigate Izak Rankine over alleged homophobic slur | AFL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Adelaide star Izak Rankine is under AFL investigation for allegedly using a homophobic slur during the game against Collingwood on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The AFL confirmed on Monday that its integrity unit is looking into the alleged on-field incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThe AFL is aware of an alleged matter with the Integrity Unit making enquiries,\u201d a league spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Adelaide have confirmed that one of their players is under investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cWe are aware of an alleged matter involving one of our players in Saturday night\u2019s game and we are in discussions with the AFL,\u201d a club spokesperson said on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Crows defeated the Magpies to lock in a first finals campaign since 2017 and tighten their grip on top spot with one round remaining in the home and away season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Rankine has been critical to the Crows\u2019 rise into premiership contention after the club finished 15th last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The 25-year-old has averaged 20.5 disposals and booted 31 goals this season as his creative spark is a key to the Crows\u2019 success.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Rankine is yet to play in a finals series after spending four seasons with Gold Coast before joining a rebuilding Adelaide at the end of 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">But the resurgent Crows\u2019 premiership hopes could face a huge blow as the AFL integrity unit looks into the alleged incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cIt\u2019s obviously in the AFL\u2019s hands and we will let them investigate and see what happens,\u201d Adelaide captain Jordan Dawson said on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The AFL has handed out suspensions ranging from three to five matches in the past two seasons to players found guilty of conduct unbecoming.<\/p>\n<p>skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1sbse14\">Sign up to <span>From the Pocket: AFL Weekly<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1xjndtj\">Jonathan Horn brings expert analysis on the week&#8217;s biggest AFL stories<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"dcr-1eusqlu\"><strong>Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n<p id=\"EmailSignup-skip-link-13\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-label=\"after newsletter promotion\" role=\"note\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">West Coast\u2019s Jack Graham was last month suspended for four matches for directing a \u201chighly offensive\u201d homophobic slur toward a GWS Giants opponent, after the Eagles player self-reported the incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Sydney player Riak Andrew was suspended for five matches this season for a homophobic slur used in a VFL match against North Melbourne.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Three AFL players were suspended for using homophobic slurs last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Gold Coast defender Wil Powell (five matches) and Port Adelaide forward Jeremy Finlayson (three) were banned over incidents during AFL matches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">St Kilda\u2019s Lance Collard was handed a six-match penalty for \u201cunprompted and highly offensive\u201d slurs directed towards two Williamstown players in a VFL game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adelaide star Izak Rankine is under AFL investigation for allegedly using a homophobic slur during the game against Collingwood on Saturday night. The AFL confirmed on Monday that its integrity unit is looking into the alleged on-field incident. \u201cThe AFL is aware of an alleged matter with the Integrity Unit making enquiries,\u201d a league spokesperson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[3709,1038,3713,9748,1765,9749,9750,3100,9263],"class_list":{"0":"post-16398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-alleged","10":"tag-homophobic","11":"tag-integrity","12":"tag-investigate","13":"tag-izak","14":"tag-rankine","15":"tag-slur","16":"tag-unit"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}