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Further implications
There are clear limits to the extent to which AFL clubs can manage the behaviour of spectators at football games. The absolute limit of their control was demonstrated by the continued booing of Adam Goodes. The extent to which the booing was racially motivated can be debated; however, Goodes clearly believed it to be so and AFL clubs and club captains requested that crowds refrain from booing. The AFL's administration requested that crowds refrain from booing and numerous high profile players did likewise. None of these requests was heeded. The crowds continued to boo.
Two things are notable here - attempts at moral persuasion do not always work and when the crowd is large enough and people are sufficiently anonymous, it is not going to be possible to control behaviour.
The AFL has been condemned for responding too slowly and doing too little to manage the mass hostility which Adam Goodes faced. The reality is there are few things they would have been able to do. All that is likely to have had some effect would have been if games had been halted whenever the booing occurred. However, it is not certain that even such a drastic response would have brought the results sought.
It is conceivable that given the resentment evident in many fan comments on this issue, crowds may have begun more wide-spread booing, not focussed on Goodes but on a range of other players. Would the League have ultimately faced a situation where they would have had to attempt to ban booing outright and would they have been able to achieve this?
Where the objectionable behaviour is less generalised, bystander pressure appears to achieve some results. The fan who racially abused Patrick Ryder not only stopped but subsequently ran away after being challenged by a number of other spectators.
Changing the crowd climate regarding racial abuse and aggressive barracking in general seems to require a combination of education and penalties. The AFL typically combines the two approaches with players found guilty of racial abuse not only being fined but also being required to undergoing training programs in racial awareness. The same types of programs have been offered to spectators who have been found to have called out racially abusive comments.
Perhaps the most effective form of education is the sort that widespread media debate surrounding these incidents achieves. The media has a large capacity both to inform and provoke discussion. Education programs directed at a racially abusive supporter reaches one person, debating the issue within the media reaches millions and also has the advantage of allowing different views on the issue to be aired. This appears to be important as reader comments in the print media and comments on social media reveal a rejection among some spectators of attempts by clubs and others to moderate fan behaviour. Attempts to enforce racial tolerance or argue for it are commonly seen as either administrative over-reach or politically correct preaching.
Given this, it appears that neither penalties nor education will completely remove the problem. Ultimately crowd behaviour is a reflection of community attitudes and it will take a change in these attitudes to eradicate racism from among fans. In the meantime the AFL has distinguished itself as a world leader in attempts to reduce racism in sport.
It is interesting to note that under Australia's anti-discrimination laws the public utterance of racially abusive comments likely to give offence is against the law. The measure of whether a particular comment is offensive is whether a reasonable member of the minority group being abused would find it offensive. Therefore spectator claims that they did not intend to make racist comments are not relevant under Australian law as the judgement is made by the person against whom the comment is directed. What is also worthy of note is that though it is against the law to make racially offensive comments there are no penalties attached. The purpose of the law appears to be largely educative.