Geelong great Sam Newman has blasted the AFL players protest related to the Black Lives Matter movement and lashed out at George Floyd and NBA legend LeBron James.

The former Footy Show icon questioned if players knew what they were protesting for, claiming they were kneeling for police brutality, not racism.

Speaking on his podcast ‘You Cannot Be Serious' alongside AFL great Don Scott and journalist Mike Sheahan, Newman did not hold back in his harsh assessment of Floyd.

“George Floyd, who is a piece of sh*t incidentally,' he began.

‘You know who George Floyd is? He has been in jail five times, he held up a pregnant black woman with a knife, he's a drug addict, he's a crack head and he's a porn star.'

Newman's co-host Mike Sheehan then added: “And he's dead.”

Newman responded: 'Because of the police brutality. And it should never have happened, but I'm just telling you who George Floyd is and they've made a monument to him and he's a piece of sh*t.'

The 74-year old continued by saying that the entire thing has snowballed internationally and blown out of proportion from what the centre of the issue was in America.

“No one (in the AFL) knows why they're kneeling at this stage, which was inspired by an American event,” Newman said.

“The players wouldn't have knelt if George Floyd hadn't been suffocated by a disgraceful act by the American police.

“The protest was about police brutality, then it morphed into all those other things then they came out and said it's about racism here and Aboriginals.

“People wonder why we take this from overseas. That wasn't the reason they knelt in the first place, it was police brutality.

“That's why they got on a knee, they were protesting against police brutality and then it morphed into Black Lives Matter and then it morphed into defund the police then it got to racism then it got to looting and … the whole cause has been overlooked.

“When you see people kneeling in our game, for God's sake make it apparent what they're kneeling (for).”

Newman took offence to a Twitter post by Los Angeles Lakers star James last month - who was standing up for Ahmaud Arbery - a black American man who was shot while jogging

“This is LeBron James' statement, this is what you're dealing with, this is how you divide people,” Newman said.

“Now what sort of irresponsible nonsense is that and how does that unite people? That does more to drive a wedge between people, that divides people.

“That's meant to be a responsible person who is meant to be partially educated. Why do people put up with nonsense like that?”

The 300-gamer denied that Australia was a racist country.

“If you keep telling people in Australia that we are systemically racist, you end up dividing people rather than doing the good of trying to unite people because this country is not systemically racist,” Newman said.

“That is lumping every person in the country into saying we are racist. We are not racist.

“There are certain people who revel in being racist and getting on your knees, it won't affect them at all because they are evil people and they are breaking the law.”