MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 27: Heritier Lumumba calls for the ball during a Collingwood Magpies AFL training session at Westpac Centre on March 27, 2014 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Robert Prezioso/Getty Images)
Ex-Magpies defender Heritier Lumumba is suing Collingwood and the AFL for racist allegations during his playing days.
The 33-year old filed documents to the Supreme Court this week, alleging that the Pies failed in their "duty of care" to provide a safe workplace.
“On numerous occasions during his employment, the plaintiff was subjected to racial abuse or racially-offensive conduct,” the court documents read.
“[Collingwood] failed to take any or any sufficient steps to provide and maintain a safe working environment, including by protecting the plaintiff from racial abuse or racially-offensive conduct.
“By reason of the matters set out above, the plaintiff has suffered loss, damage, and injury including trauma, humiliation, distress, and loss of enjoyment.”
Lumumba played 199 games for Collingwood from 2005 to 2014 and was a member of the club's 2010 premiership side, claiming an All-Australian jumper in the same year.
He was traded to the Demons at the end of 2014 where he claims the racial abuse stopped.
The backman played 24 games for Melbourne before hanging up the boots in 2016.
Lumumba has been vocal earlier this year in his racial allegations against Collingwood, demanding a public apology from the club.
The Magpies conducted an internal review of the culture of the club during Lumumba's playing career.
However, Lumumba wanted no involvement of the investigation.
“Collingwood’s suggestion that it will ‘investigate’ itself after actively denying my story for 6 years is frankly insulting. Senior people in the club have known the truth this whole time and chose a cover-up over transparency,“ he wrote on Twitter in June.
“I have no desire to convince Collingwood of a truth that they already know. Given the club’s inability to come clean, and the way it has attempted to publicly and privately attack my reputation, I cannot accept that this ‘integrity’ process has been proposed in good faith.”