NRL joins hunt for troll behind Inglis racial slur
July 24, 2013
Glenn Jackson
Rugby League Writer
Greg Inglis with partner Sally Photo: Dallas Kilponen
The racial slur against Greg Inglis on social media has attracted the ire of the highest office in the sport, with NRL chief executive Dave Smith condemning the online comments while promising assistance in identifying the perpetrator.
Smith described the Instagram post aimed at Inglis, the South Sydney fullback, and his wife Sally as “abhorrent” on Wednesday night as the Rabbitohs players rallied around their teammate.
“Racism in any form is abhorrent and contrary to every value our game,” Smith said. “This applies on the field, in the grandstand and in any walk of life.
Racial abuse: A troll has targeted Greg Inglis and his wife highly offensive comments to a picture on Instagram. Photo: Getty Images
“Greg is a wonderful athlete and a great role model for our game, and this attack on him and his family is shameful.”
Souths officials have been trying to track down the source of the unsavoury post, which was directed at Inglis and his wife on Tuesday night. The NRL will also investigate “the extent to which the person can be identified and what action can be taken”.
The post was written as a comment on an Instagram photo of the Test representative and wife. In response, Inglis took a screenshot and forwarded the offending remarks to journalists on Twitter.
And here’s a sample of comments made by NRL identities in support of Inglis. Moreover, the majority of readers’ comments in the SMH were supportive of him and disgusted with the cowardly troll.
Nathan Merritt: “It’s not appropriate. But I think it’s going to get taken care of. There’s no place in the world for it.”
Rabbitohs’ prop Jeff Lima described the act as cowardly.
“These things need to be stamped out,” Lima said. “The sooner they stamp it out, the better it’ll be for everyone. There’s a lot of bad people in the world.”
Roy Asotasi : “Racism is not acceptable in this country or anywhere…the more that we’re open about it, and aware that there is racism out there, we can obviously prevent it from happening,”
The sickening comment read in part: “I steered [sic] in your face for more than a hour trying to classify your race but I failed I didn’t not find any human catagories[sic] to classify you on it.”
It went on to further disparage Inglis’ background and his relationship with his wife. Inglis re-posted the comment on his Twitter account, with the hashtag “#racism#it#stops#with#me”.(SMH)
The troll trawls Instagram and associated sites under the nick “beauty_lovero”. It uses a stock photo of movie star Jennifer Aniston as its profile pic.
The whole tone of the comment has the stench of white supremacist about it.
It makes unwanted comments under photographs of young women. It also makes disparaging comments under pictures which it doesn’t like. For instance there was a shot of American parents and their adopted multiracial family which Coward objected to. The offensive comment was removed, probably by one of the parents.
Here are some more comments from random sites. Obviously English is not one of Coward’s strong points, nor is sanity.
We like to imagine what the NRL would do if it ever got hold of that cowardly creep
And Facebook owns Instagram. Given Mark Zuckerberg’s cavalier and careless attitude towards racism we are probably not surprised.
you said it... 