AS A racism furore engulfs rugby league, Australian rules has again shown it is not rid of such prejudices either.

At an AFL function in Melbourne yesterday, the West Australian football legend Mal Brown referred to indigenous players - including one of the AFL's most famous, Nicky Winmar - as ''cannibals''.

Referring to poor ground lighting at some matches, he said: ''It actually disadvantaged us. We couldn't pick any of the cannibals. Nicky Winmar, Michael Mitchell. We didn't even get any white shirts to put on them.''

Brown's comments prompted some laughter in the room. But the MC, the former Melbourne star Garry Lyon, was embarrassed. ''You've just put us on the back page of every paper tomorrow,'' he said.

When contacted after the lunch, Lyon said: ''You can't control everyone. Everyone needs to take responsibility for things they do and say in this world these days, and Mal's big enough and old enough to understand that.''