[3][4] From 2013, his outspokenness on racial issues contributed to his being the target of a sustained booing campaign from opposition fans, causing him to take indefinite leave from the AFL and eventually retire from the game at the end of the 2015 season.

[5] Goodes' father is of English, Irish and Scottish ancestry; his mother is an Aboriginal Australian (Adnyamathanha and Narungga),[6][7] and is one of the Stolen Generation.

[11] He spent the 1998 season in the reserves competition, but broke into the first team the following year and went on to win the league's Rising Star Award.

At the end of the season, Goodes won the club's best and fairest award (the Bob Skilton Medal)[13] and received All-Australian selection for the first time.

[14] However, his greatest achievement was winning the league's highest personal honour, the Brownlow Medal, alongside Collingwood's Nathan Buckley and Adelaide's Mark Ricciuto.

Goodes played some high standard football in 2009 in what was a relatively disappointing season in which the Swans finished 12th and failed to make the finals for the first time in six years.

Having started the season at centre half-forward and providing a target inside 50 for much of the year, Goodes was shifted into the midfield with success.

He finished sixth in the Bob Skilton Medal and was named in the initial 40 player All-Australian squad but not in the final side.

After a strong 2009 season and an occasional move to half-forward, Goodes was selected last but managed to sneak into the 2009 All-Australian team on the interchange bench.

He became the quickest player (though not the youngest) in AFL history to reach the milestone, breaking 2003 joint-Brownlow Medalist Mark Ricciuto's record by 274 days.

[14] In 2011 Goodes started as the second favourite for the Brownlow but finished eighth overall, and won the 2011 Sydney Swans' Best and Fairest, beating Josh Kennedy and Rhyce Shaw, who tied for second.

[29] On 10 October 2023, Goodes was one of 25 Australians of the Year who signed an open letter supporting the Yes vote in the Indigenous Voice referendum.

The essay concerns the Aboriginal ball game, Marngrook, and its theorised link to the origins of Australian rules football.

"[32] Appearing on The Marngrook Footy Show on NITV in a discussion about the origins of the game shortly after publication of the book, AFL historian Gillian Hibbins called Goodes a "racist", adding: "If you define racism as believing a race is superior in something, this is basically what he was doing."

Founding partners include the Sydney Swans, Allens Linklaters, QBE Insurance and KPMG Australia.

[42] McGuire, who came to Goodes' defence just five days prior, would claim three years later that his joke was made while on "heavy-duty painkillers".

The motivation for, and acceptability of, the booing generated wide public debate, which dominated media coverage from both sports and political commentators for weeks at a time.

[47][48] Others, such as commentator Sam Newman,[49] defended the rights of fans to continue booing as a show of disapproval for Goodes' actions, including a perception that his approach in dealing with the Collingwood fan who called him an ape was heavy-handed,[50][49] and for statements he had made during his time as Australian of the Year which had been seen to denigrate the history of European settlement of Australia.

[51] The AFL Players' Association and captains showed solidarity with Goodes, releasing an open statement that included the words "We encourage supporters to demonstrate zero tolerance and report any behaviour which vilifies a person on the basis of their personal characteristics, such as race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

[54] The "symbolic act" has been compared favourably to Nicky Winmar lifting his guernsey during the 1993 AFL season and Cathy Freeman running with both the Australian and Aboriginal flags at the 1994 Commonwealth Games.

[55] However, some spectators were offended by the perceived aggressive nature of the spear-throwing gesture and many considered it retaliatory against the booing he had received in previous weeks.

It divided opinion among News Corp commentators, with many viewing it as inflammatory to the situation which had received particularly wide media coverage during the previous week.

[56] The booing of Goodes intensified in the months after the war dance, leading further public debate and to the Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, calling the booers "ignorant".

[57] Goodes was surprised by the attention and negative reaction to his dance and later apologised for any offence, saying that because he was depicting an "Aboriginal warrior" and the ceremony was a "war cry" it needed to be directed at the opposing team's players.

[49] He returned the following week and played for the remainder of the season after an outpouring of support on social media; and from fans, actors, politicians, celebrities and teammates, including two spontaneous standing ovations.

We are unified on this, and never want to see the mistakes of the past repeated.The statement also said that the football community "pledged to continue to fight all forms of racism and discrimination, on and off the field".

He also documented his early years, mentioning the story of his mother of the Adnyamathanha and Narungga peoples who was a member of the Stolen Generations.

In 2019, two documentary films addressing the controversial end to Goodes' career, as well as the wider issues of racism and national identity in Australia, were released.

In a project taking four years, the computerised history of Goodes' performance data was transformed into an art installation commissioned by Adelaide's MOD.

UNSW technologist Angie Abdilla and artist Baden Pailthorpe collaborated with Goodes in the Tracker Data Project, which is open to the public from February to December 2022.