AFL Great cancels visit to Tasmania due to 'continued harassment' of manager
AFL legend Nicky Winmar has canceled his NAIDOC week’s visit to northwestern Tasmania after “continued harassment” of his controversial manager, Ricky Nixon.
Key points:
- A campaign has been launched against Mr Nixon’s appearance, highlighting his relationship with a 17-year-old girl in 2010 that cost him his AFL player agent accreditation.
- The local club president said Nixon was a “colorful character” who “took the punishment on the chin” for his past mistakes.
- Mr Nixon holds a Work with Vulnerable Person card equivalent to Victoria
Winmar will host a soccer clinic in Smithton on Friday and present the Indigenous designed soccer jumpers to Circular Head Saints ahead of Saturday’s NAIDOC Round game.
But the visit was canceled on Thursday evening, with Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation blaming it for “false and misguided criticism” targeted at Nixon.
Nixon said “the actions of an individual at Smithton” meant authorities had advised the couple not to travel.
“Nicky Winmar and I have decided that the priority must be, and always will be, the safety of the public, so we will not be coming to Tasmania this weekend on the advice of the authorities,” he wrote on Facebook.
“However, we will be helping the community in other ways in the next few months which we will announce soon.”
A campaign has been launched against Mr Nixon appearing at the event, highlighting his relationship with a 17-year-old girl which led to his AFL player agent accreditation being suspended.
The AFL Players Association Accreditation Board found she had violated her code of conduct in 2011 after the girl released footage of a man she claimed to be Mr Nixon, depicted half-naked in a Melbourne hotel bed.
Mr Nixon admitted to inappropriate dealings with the teenager at the hotel but denied having sex with him or supplying him with drugs and alcohol.
In 2015, he was reportedly arrested on suspicion of an offensive social media post in which he threatened to attack a two-year-old child.
Nixon declined to comment further.
Aboriginal Company Circular Chair Selina Maguire-Colgrave said the campaign against Nixon was carried out by community members who “actively and intentionally undermine the opportunities of this community on the basis of misinformation”.
He said Mr Nixon held the Victorian equivalent of Working with Vulnerable People, and the positivity of Winmar’s visit should not be obscured by Mr Nixon accompanying him.
But Smithton resident Melissa Wells said she had publicly expressed concern about Nixon’s “highly questionable” behavior earlier, and was only seeking reassurance that she had a valid Working with Vulnerable Person card.
“We personally went in and had a private talk with the manager at CHAC and tried to keep all of this a secret, and our main concern was: does he have a Working with Vulnerable person card? So why? [wasn’t] I told him a few weeks ago when I asked him if he had a card,” he said.
“I’m still worried about the prospect of him coming, but I feel that I won’t be able to have a vocal and direct opinion on it because he does have a card.”
Circular Head Saints president Keith Billing said it was a “huge disappointment” for the club and the wider community that Winmar was no longer present.
“The disappointment will spread to all individuals such as school students and senior citizens [Emerton Park nursing home]and of course football [community] and it’s our club that will get the chance to meet him and maybe get their Indigenous jumper signed by him,” he said.
Billing said his view was that Nixon was a “colorful character” who had “took the punishment on the chin” for his past mistakes.
“I have no problem with them being a package, of course. Nicky Winmar trusts his agent and the agent carries the Victoria card equivalent of Working with Vulnerables, so the man should be free to walk around like everyone else does,” he said.
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