Indigenous Australians turn away from Adelaide Oval AFL match

A ticketing staff member from Adelaide Oval said that he had been told to not sell tickets for Aboriginal people at a sporting event.

Sports fans have attempted to attend an Australian football game that celebrated the Aboriginal and Torres Islander cultures in the hands of both islands last July.

The staff member says that she had to tell people that the game had been sold.

Adelaide Oval apologized and said the police instructions had been misinterpreted by the staff.

The woman, employed by McArthur Recruitment, told ABC News that the counter supervisor "turned around and told everyone at the counter that we were told not to sell tickets to Aboriginal people anymore. ".

A spokesman for McArthur Recruitment said: "The ticketing staff followed police and security instructions and did not sell tickets to anyone for about an hour, while police and security handled the situation.

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"The security services are returned to the ticket counter after the incident to reiterate their instruction not to sell tickets to a number of people they have reported to the counter staff."

The woman said that she had lied to some customers telling them that there were no more tickets left. She resigned from her job the next day.

A South Australian police spokeswoman told the BBC that she had responded to a "request for badistance" in which some customers were trying to enter Adelaide Oval, or were buying tickets to get on the ground. , were clearly drunk.

"The police have not at any time instructed employees of ticket sales about the sale of tickets."

Darren Chandler, general manager of operations at Adelaide Oval, said: "It is extremely disappointing that a ticket desk supervisor misinterpreted a police message and failed to comply with established protocols to clarify the situation. situation.

"Our position is unequivocal: everyone is welcome to Adelaide Oval and we condemn all forms of discrimination, we apologize to all concerned and have taken steps to ensure that this situation does not happen again."

The news of this incident came less than a month after Accor hotels had confirmed the investigation into allegations that staff at one of its Australian hotels segregated customers.