Club's furious response to Hopoate racism claims

The Forestville Ferrets have vehemently denied claims of racist remarks from their players as suggested by John Hopoate.

Hopoate claimed he was provoked by the Ferrets’ players prior to the shocking fight in a Manly A-Grade match in July.

After the 44-year-old appeared on KISS FM to accuse the Ferrets of provoking him, the club was quick to release a strong statement.

“Hopoate’s decision to make these public comments only after the judiciary’s decision puts his integrity in question,” the statement read.

“In the week after the incident John Hopoate attended Forestville A-grade training and apologised to every player for his actions and shook their hands.

“He apologised for acting like an (expletive) idiot and offered reasons for his actions that had nothing to do with the game.

‘At no time did he mention any racial issues when interacting with the players.”

The claims of racist remarks from Forestville first came out when Hopoate faced the NSWRL tribunal on Wednesday to learn of his fate.

But since the former rugby league bad boy decided to publicly re-address the issue, the Ferrets decided to react.

In a tense 20-minute hearing in which the former Manly and Wests Tigers winger unsuccessfully asked media to leave the room, he claimed he’d only been provoked by the opposing player before the incident.

“No-one gets angry for no reason … I was called a ‘f***king black monkey’ and I didn’t like it so I threatened to bash him and I’d do it again,” Hopoate told the panel.

When asked why he didn’t report the racial slurs to match officials at the time, he said it was because he “wasn’t a bitch”.

“I was too angry to say it because all I wanted to do was slap the guy who was being a smart arse,” he said.

“It’s unacceptable (behaviour) but are we going to let these people get away with racism?

“I’d do the same thing here if someone called me a f***ing black monkey.”

Hopoate apologised for the incident in which he accepted he’d carried on like “a friggin’ mug”, and also brought with him letters from an under-16s Cromer Kingfishers girls’ team which he coaches.

Panel chairman John Walford told the 44-year-old he should have reported the racial taunts to match officials, and said he gave them little weight when considering the sentence as they had not been relayed to the referee.

with AAP.