Hawthorn have encouraged AFL fans to immediately point out people who racially abuse players during games, even though it could spark a violent incident.

Hawks chief executive Stuart Fox said the club is determined to uncover the person who hurled racist comments at star spearhead Lance Franklin in Tasmania on Saturday, but has urged all fans to be vigilant on match day.

Fox added he was appalled that Franklin was called a "black c..." several times during the win over West Coast at Launceston's Aurora Stadium.

He said Franklin was initially stunned by the abuse, which he heard clearly, but had put it behind him.

Hawthorn are trying to identify the male in the crowd who made the comments and want to bar him from future matches.

"It's not going to be easy to find the offender," Fox said.

"We've had a look at some (television) footage and it's certainly going to be hard to find from that.

"If anyone was there we would encourage them to call into the club or the AFL because then we would be in a position to take some action, but until we can find the offender we really can't do too much."

Fox said they had not even been able to narrow down the offender's location to a particular bay of seating.

The Hawks boss urged all fans to identify people who behave contrary to the rules of the league, despite the potential to cause tensions with other supporters.

"I'd encourage all supporters of every club out there, if they see something or hear something that's offensive like this that they do have a right to report it," he said.

"It's hard to manage because it puts people on the spot and can cause a bit of friction at stadiums."

He said he would talk to the ground management in Tasmania to set up a more intensive security arrangement in light of the issue.

"I know the MCG have a system set up and we'll certainly talk to Aurora Stadium about a system down in Tasmania that might work for us," he said.

Fox said Franklin was not dwelling on the incident.

"He wants to move on pretty quickly and he's not the sort of guy who wants to take action, but he was disappointed," he said.

Fox said he only became aware of the incident on Monday night.

"We couldn't deal with it last night because we had a board meeting, but we thought we should at least get out today and explain where we're at," he said.

"I sat down with Lance this morning and had a good chat with him. He's very disappointed and probably shocked that it happened."

The AFL and the AFL Players' Association were alerted to the incident last night, with the league also determined to discover the man's identity.

AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou called on the man responsible to apologise to Franklin and other fans at the match.

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