Melbourne captain Max Gawn says he is "embarrassed to call (himself) an AFL player at the moment" following the second homophobic slur in the past month.
Gold Coast's Wil Powell is the latest offender who has been sanctioned by the league for his outburst during the loss to Brisbane in Round 8.
Powell was found guilty of conduct unbecoming for the first-quarter incident and was whacked with a five-game suspension.
A month earlier, Port Adelaide forward Jeremy Finlayson was discovered to have used a homophobic slur toward an Essendon player and was subsequently handed a three-match ban.
Discussing with host Marty Sheargold on Triple M's Marty Sheargold Show,ย Gawn is still frustrated by how these scenarios come about and believes the "heat-of-battle" excuse is just a cop-out.
โI'm not too fussed about the punishment. I'm just pretty embarrassed about the AFL cohort slipping up time and time again," Gawn said on Friday.
"This is three (bans) in a year.โ
Sheargold: โBut it (the bans) has to have some structure, because what if in two weeks' time, โold mate' does it and then where do we go from five weeks?โ
Gawn: โWell, you go to six weeks, don't you?
โIt's embarrassing to call yourself an AFL player at the moment. You're sort of getting slapped with this brand. Hopefully, I know our group, we talk about this. Hopefully, we've learnt the lesson and we can go forward.
ย โI think all three of these people would have run with that excuse straight up that it was the heat of battle but that is just not an excuse.โ
