Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has declared the Magpies 'want to find a solution' after former defender Heritier Lumumba slammed the club on social media for their handling of racist incidents.
McGuire revealed on Channel 9's Footy Classified that the club had tried to reach Lumumba through premiership player Chris Dawes.
"I'm not going to get into the comments other than to say this: Heritier Lumumba was a valued member of the Collingwood Football Club - and remains to this day," McGuire told Footy Classified.
"I continually try and reach out to Heritier. In fact, earlier this year I was in Los Angeles and tried to find him, because I want to bring him home to give him a life membership at the Collingwood Football Club.
"Heritier has spoken to Fox Sports in the last 24 hours and I'm going to try again and reach out."
"We want to find a solution."
Eddie McGuire responds to the comments made by Heritier Lumumba earlier this week.#9FootyClassified | Watch @channel9 pic.twitter.com/F5UbaL8soJ
— Footy on Nine (@FootyonNine) June 10, 2020
Lumumba had called out McGuire on racist comments he made about Adam Goodes and that coach Nathan Buckley did not support him at the time. He was also endured racists jokes at the hands of his teammates.
When McGuire was asked if he would support a player who spoke out against the football club, he replied: "Of course, of course, if there was a situation like that."
"We're all trying to get a solution," McGuire said on Footy Classified. "We're not defending ourselves. We put ourselves out there.
"I'm really proud of what we do at Collingwood, as far as the Magpies' Nest and what we do with out Indigenous programs. We have great leadership from Travis Varcoe, we had 'Wellsy' [David Wells] there last year, who's just a wonderful leader in the Indigenous community. So I don't have an issue with that.
"But if Heritier is still obviously feeling the pain, well we reach out. We want to find a solution."