16 January, 2016 10:45
CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ormer North Melbourne Kangaroos footballer Sam Kekovich, the face of the Australia Day lamb ad, challenged vegans to try lamb and “get a life” during a live interview with David Koch on Channel 7’s Sunrise.
No one could have imagined the embarrassing news that would follow.
More than 600 complaints have been lodged with the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) by individuals and organisations mainly offended with the attack on vegans in the ad, which shows highly militarised ‘special Australia Day agents’ blowtorching a bowl of vegan-friendly kale and rescuing an Australian ex-pat in time for an Australia Day barbecue.
“This campaign, let me tell you, has been overwhelmingly well received by all the establishing holders, including the consumers, the red meat industry and every one else associated with it. The vegans need to get a life.” said Mr Kekovich.
However,
Shortly after Kekovich’s offensive tirade towards Australia’s most culturally frustrated community of inner city bleeding hearts, it was revealed by former teammates from his time in the AFL, that Mr Kekovich was himself a vegan during the North Kangaroo’s fairytale 1975 premiership win over Hawthorn.
Former teammate and 1975 half back flank, Ross Henshaw says that the entire North Kangaroos outfit (including coaches and executive staff) used to refer to Sam Kekovich as “Sam Megabitch’ during his less-advertised ‘vegan-phase’ in the mid ’70s.
“Mate, he reckoned it helped him on the pitch. Most of us were living off tinned bully beef at the time because we didn’t get paid too well,”
“But Kek was constantly eating all this weird shit he used to find at the Asian grocers,”
“As the father of a vegan, I find his new stance of non-meaters very offensive and very hypocritical,”
1975 North Kangaroos captain, David Dench has also come out swinging against Kekovich’s controversial comments.
“Mate, as a Melbourne boy Sam should know as well as anyone that this city is a very accepting place,”
“Melbourne invented the Gluten Free diet, veganism isn’t that rare in Melbourne… I think Sam is just trying to make up for the fact that he was eating quinoa salads during our mad monday celebrations after we got the flag,”
“He’s obviously embarrassed by it, for some reason,”
Sam Kekovich was unable to comment, but his management have told us, and his former teammates, to get a life.
[…] Allegedly, former football teammates of Kekovich have come forward to say that he was a vegan himself during the 70s […]