Former Collingwood defender Héritier Lumumba has made a stunning revelation about the countless acts of racial vilification he was reportedly subjected to during his 10 years at the club.
In an extended Facebook post, Lumumba claimed the Magpies severely mistreated him through the use of inappropriate nicknames and the failure to support his claims of racial injustice when condemning club president Eddie McGuire over racial comments. Lumumba says the years of mistreatment led to a deterioration in his mental health.
"The Collingwood Football Club and AFL must publicly acknowledge that my experiences of racism during my career were inadequately dealt with," Lumumba posted.
Lumumba, a premiership player with the Magpies, then proceeded to list nine different bullet points which outlined some of the damaging incidents he experienced during his tenure at the club.
"I had the nickname 'Chimp' between 2005 - 2013, and there was a culture of racist jokes," Lumumba revealed. "I spoke out against McGuire's racism, on 28/5/2013 and was ostracised internally for doing so, particularly from [Nathan] Buckley who said 'you threw the president under the bus'.
"They viewed what I did as wrong, and remained unapologetic about it, as a result I was treated differently for the worse."
The backlash from voicing his opinion saw Lumumba's mental health take a hit. He says he began using psilocybin mushrooms as a way to "deal with his distressed state."
"I first addressed CFC's culture - that conflicted with workplace rights and human rights in a team meeting [on] 27/6/2013," Lumumba said. "Immediately following the team meeting, the nickname stopped, as did the jokes from within the playing group.
"However, the Collingwood Football Club/AFL did not have the capacity, nor the desire, to address the issues that I was raising," he said. "They were negligent and did not take internal issues seriously.
"McGuire and Buckley, and [Gillon] McLachlan proceeded to make aversions about my mental health, while my former teammates, who knew it was true, remained silent."
Lumumba spent two seasons at Melbourne after his stint at Collingwood before retiring from football at the end of 2016.
ESPN has attempted to contact the Collingwood Football Club for comment.