Eddie Betts was told to LEAVE a public swimming pool because of his skin colour

Eddie Betts has revealed how he felt like he did not belong in Australia after he was ejected from a public swimming pool with his children because of their skin colour.

Betts appeared on Fox Sports on Wednesday night in the wake of explosive allegations made against Alastair Clarkson surrounding his treatment of indigenous players. The coach refutes the accusations made against him.

Betts, regarded as one of the greatest indigenous players the AFL has ever seen, said he believed the allegations against Clarkson and the Hawthorn coaching staff to be true, because it is an experience that he, alongside many aborigines, have lived.

In explaining his answer, Betts told of how a lifeguard asked him to leave a pool because an elderly white couple made a complaint.    

‘Well it keeps happening, we have grown up with this stuff.,’ he said. ‘It’s not just in the AFL system, it is all of these systems. 

‘I find myself being followed by security guards in the shop. This year alone I was at a pool and the lifeguard came up to me and told me that I needed to get out of the pool. 

‘I was holding my kid, my baby in my hand and my two twins were swimming around and I found out that two old white elderly couple told the lifeguard to tell me to get out of the pool because I was making their grandchild uncomfortable. 

‘That just made me feel like I don’t belong here in Australia, because these issues keep occurring that I keep facing, that all aboriginal people keep facing here in Australia and I honestly feel like I don’t belong here but my wife keeps driving it into me and keeps telling me that “out of anyone, you should feel like you belong here because this is your country and you should never feel like that”. But because I keep facing these issues I don’t feel like I belong.’

More to follow.