Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell has drawn a line in the sand against racism telling fans "we're not interested in having you as part of our club" if they're responsible for social media abuse in an emotional start to his post-match press conference.

He made the remarks after an apparent incident during the Hawks' 27-point win over Adelaide on Saturday afternoon.

The player subjected and details around the incident were not made clear, though it was confirmed the player was aware of the abuse and had agreed to it being addressed.

Mitchell opened his press conference to denounce the behaviour unprompted.

"I love footy and I love our game, and I think the position we have as leaders of the community we need to do the best job we possibly can around discrimination," he said.

"But we got some stuff that I don't want to go into it...but I just want to put it out there that if you have any form of racism in you as a Hawthorn person, we're not interested in having you as part of our club.

"So while we're all enjoying a fantastic win, and we should all be enjoying it, unfortunately, some parts of our Hawthorn family can't enjoy it because of what heroes on their keyboards think that they're capable of doing.

"And any one of those who ever wears brown and gold, we don't want you."

Mitchell said he believed it was important to "add to the voices who take a stand against anything to do with racism and vilification", and was conscious of giving the incident 'more oxygen' but went ahead with calling out the abuse after consulting those affected.

"Every player that is playing there just leaves so much of their life in a football sense. And for that to be called out because of how they look is just honestly - grow up. It's absolutely ridiculous," he said.

"All I can do is support them in any way that I have the power to do and I get the power of a press conference. (I asked people involved) do you want me to support that or does that make it worse? And the comment was I think we need to show as much support as we can. So I decided to do that.

"I just thought it was important that I added my voice in a time when you know, I've got people who should be celebrating - who are celebrating still, but there's a black dog following them around."

The AFL faced a lengthy and regular issue with online vilification attacks in the first half of the 2023 season.

Robust approach to lifetime bans for fans proven guilty from attending games resulted.