With racism in football rearing its ugly head once again, North Melbourne CEO, Ben Amarfio, has issued an impassioned plea to the AFL to “go harder” at racism in football.

“We have to try again, then fail again, and we have to fail better. Hopefully then we get incremental improvement,” Amarfio told The Age.

“My view is that education is great and we should always continue that, but clearly we need to go harder in every aspect.

“Despite the AFL’s best endeavours and being an absolute leader in this country … no other code in the country has done more … our players still get trolled online, they cop it over the fence and as we’ve seen it’s even within our clubs.”

The son of a Ghanaian father and Armenian mother, Amarfio recently opened up about his own experiences of racism, suffering abuse as a teenager in the Essendon District Football League.

The most notable of these instances was when he was vilified by two female spectators in the middle of a game.

Amarfio says racist comments made are indicative of a much larger issue.

“Why it hurts so much; it perpetuates a centuries-old practice of what white people have done to subjugate black people,” he said.

“When it’s an idiot online or over the fence, we ban them and take their memberships off them and you have some solace because you say this person is clearly ignorant.

“When it’s a leader within our industry, who has been through 15 years of education in this area and who has had many close bonds and friendships with black people, when it comes to someone like that, you’ve got to ask yourself; what the f**k are we doing?”