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Tomorrow in Townsville, 200 of the brightest indigenous football talents in our great country take part in one of Australia’s most widespread football festivals involving competitors from all corners of Australia.
We’re not talking about AFL, rugby league or even rugby. We’re talking about the round ball football code — sometimes still called soccer.
The Townsville festival is the culmination of months of regional football festivals around Australia, with great football mentors and coaches involved in helping to prepare teams for the festival. It’s a sort of FIFA World Cup style finals series where the best indigenous teams around the country congregate in Townsville for a four day festival of the boot to try and find the best indigenous Aussie football team.
It’s also a great opportunity to spot some of the best young indigenous talent and provide them with their opportunity to become one of Australia’s next generation of famous football players.
This February, the FFA launched its eagerly anticipated Indigenous football program. The response has been tremendous. The FFA’s overriding objective is within ten years to get to five per cent of all professional footballers in this country, male and female, with indigenous backgrounds, playing in the national football competitions.
That’s a pretty ambitious target set by the FFA, given that currently it stands at well below one per cent. But if the enthusiasm and participation in the first year’s festival is any indication, then it’s well within reach.
As with other codes, the move into indigenous communities with football helps to strengthen those communities, helps them to be socially more adept, reduce crime and leads to greater participation in school activities and improved community health and well being.
The war of the codes is being fought on many fronts, and in many local communities, and the push into indigenous Australia by the Football Federation of Australia is another way that the sport is trying to increase its appeal over others.
The football festival is the FFA’s first step into indigenous communities.
And who knows how many players of indigenous descent will be playing for the Socceroos, if and when we host the World Cup finals here in our own country in 2018 or 2022?
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