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NBL fans accused of racial abuse that ‘wasn’t pretty’

The Perth Wildcats will make a complaint to the NBL following alleged racial abuse directed at one of their players during a 99-78 loss to the New Zealand Breakers in Auckland.

Wildcats coach Trevor Gleeson says his centre, Nathan Jawai, was abused when he returned to the bench during the game on Wednesday, prompting him to call for extra security around his team.

“When Nate came off there was some racial (comments), and we just wanted some extra security when he was on the bench,” Gleeson told reporters.

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“We’ll take that up with the league afterwards. It wasn’t pretty.”

Australian international Jawai, 29, is of Torres Strait Islands descent and has had two stints in the NBA.

Gleeson confirmed the comments had come from fans at the North Shore Events Centre who he believed wanted to incite a reaction from Jawai.

“We don’t come here to get racially abused and we don’t want to see that in sport.”

Breakers coach Dean Vickerman expressed surprise at the allegations, saying he had never seen evidence of such behaviour from any Breakers crowd.

“You never want it to spill over that way. You want our crowd to get on the other team, but obviously there is a line and I hope our fans haven’t crossed it,” he said.

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