Perth's Nate Jawai, left, defends Cedric Jackson of the Breakers. Photo / Dean Purcell
The New Zealand Breakers' victory over the Perth Wildcats has been marred by allegations that a visiting player was racially abused by a fan in the North Shore Events Centre crowd.
Perth coach Trevor Gleeson said centre Nate Jawai, an Indigenous Australian of Torres Strait Islander descent, was subject to
abuse by an unidentified fan while sitting on the team bench.
"We don't come here to get racially abused and we don't want to see that in sport," Gleeson said. "We'll take that up with the league afterwards. It wasn't pretty - you don't want to see that incite a reaction from the player."
Perth asked for stadium security to be deployed behind their bench for the remainder of the game, with Gleeson saying the incident was an aberration from his trips to face the Breakers. "The New Zealand crowds have been great," he said. "You don't want that stuff but we'll try to clean it up in the right channels and hopefully it won't happen again."
Breakers coach Dean Vickerman expressed his disappointment with the alleged incident.
