About a quarter said they feel inhibited to express their religious views, disagreeing with prompts: "I feel free to practise my faith/spirituality at the club" and "I am comfortable talking about my faith/spirituality with my teammates". The AFL is in the process of appointing a new chief Indigenous advisor after Jason Mifsud's departure in January. Credit:Michael Clayton-Jones And while the overwhelming bulk of players expressed favourable "pro-Indigenous" views of teammates in terms of how they trained, 55.6 per cent disagreed with the broader statement that "Indigenous Australians are disadvantaged on a range of issues including lifespan, jobs, education and housing". More optimistically, the majority of participants indicated they are not homophobic, though 10.3 per cent of those surveyed – or more than 36 players – agreed with statements like "gay males sicken me because they are not real men". The AFL has had the research report for six months – since December 10 – but has only acknowledged receipt of the project to the academic authors who, over three years, also undertook the surveying in eight clubs that have been de-identified.

Sean Gorman, co-author of the study into how effective the AFL's landmark anti-vilification and discrimination rules and education programs have been, has told Fairfax Media he feels "flummoxed" not to have heard anything of substance back from the league. Representatives of the AFL and its research board that co-funded the paper attended the public launch of the research, but the AFL has not yet responded to a series of questions on the findings from Fairfax. Mindful the AFL might be forming an in-depth response to the deepest, and most current, published examination of player attitudes on racism, religion, violence, sex and sexuality, the researchers remain hopeful of receiving a more meaningful response from the league. The AFL Players Association has welcomed the information which Brett Johnson, an executive at the association and player development boss, has termed "gold" in terms of informing future work and focus areas. The AFLPA has told researchers and confirmed to Fairfax that it will use the research findings to inform the revision of its "best practice" guidelines for supporting Indigenous players to be released later this year.

"It is really important, this work," Johnson said. "It really helps us get a better picture of where things are now and it helps us with work we do moving forward. "I think it's pleasing to know that we are heading in the right direction but we understand that there's still a lot of work to be done." The report will be given to the members of the Shaun Burgoyne-headed AFLPA Indigenous Advisory board. "And we will be asking them for their recommendations," Johnson said.

"The AFL were at the launch of the paper and we're certainly going to engage the AFL to have a conversation about what we do together in regards to this research." The AFL is in the process of appointing a new chief Indigenous advisor after Jason Mifsud's departure in January to assume the state government role of Aboriginal Victoria boss. There are 73 Aboriginal players on AFL lists this year according to numbers kept by the AFLPA. The highest number since 2010 was 86 Indigenous players, which was the figure in 2011. In that six-year period it dipped as low as 68, in 2013. Doctor Gorman said that in all but one of the eight participating AFL clubs the existence of casual and nuanced racism was clear.