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In addition to showing great benefit to the game of Australian Rules at its highest levels, the AFL’s multicultural programmes are a benefit to Australia.
In the same way that a shared love of AFL has helped bridge the gap in the past between white Australians and indigenous Australians, one hopes that the encouraged involvement of people from varying backgrounds in footy can promote social harmony.
The essential goal of these programmes is to encourage people from diverse cultural backgrounds to become involved in football on a local level.
This means we have a better chance of uncovering future stars of the game. It also means that people, especially children, who might never meet each other in any other area of life can interact over footy. It goes a long way to tearing down the barriers that too often separate us.
It’s something we have seen happen over the last 50 years or so when it comes to Australia’s complicated relationship with its own indigenous peoples.
In the 1920s Douglas Nicholls, one of the Australia’s first prominent indigenous footballers, was faced with such racist attitudes from his own football club that he very nearly gave the game up.
Nearly a century later, players like Adam Goodes, Lance Franklin, and Cyril Rioli are among the most celebrated in the game. Nicholls, who passed away in 1988, would be proud.
It hasn’t been an easy journey. Indigenous players have copped racism along the way, and unfortunately they still do. However, in most cases, they have won the respect they deserve. Those left still hurling racial insults at indigenous footballers have becoming a dying breed, one whose extinction we look forward to.
It should not be the case that any group in our society is being treated without respect, but unfortunately it often is. Luckily, when we foolishly turn against each other, we can count on something as awesome as football to bring us back together.
As immigrants of diverse backgrounds become a greater and greater part of the Australian cultural landscape, there is growing concern from the existing Australian population that an influx of immigration will be damaging to Australian society.
Being a history student in my spare time, I can tell you it’s all hogwash – 150 years ago, people were terrified that the increasing numbers of Irish immigrants would ruin Australian society. The idea seems silly now, and so will the modern panic in another 150 years.
Valid or not, the panic continues. Barriers need to be broken down, and sport is perhaps the greatest barrier-breaker of all. That is where the AFL’s multicultural program comes in.
The program has made huge strides in increasing the participation of people born outside Australia, or with a parent born outside Australia in the AFL.
The program saw 25,000 people attended an AFL game in 2013. 700 multicultural children played Auskick games on the ground at halftime. More than 800 students participate in the Multicultural Schools Cup, eight Islamic schools competed for the Bachar Houli Cup. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
One of the best endeavours that has been put together is the World Team, a team of all-multicultural boys that competes at the AFL U16 Championships.
This video featuring Dae Szydlick, who was born in South Korea and adopted by an Australian family, shows a bit of how the World Team works and what an excellent job it does encouraging people to get involved in Australia’s sport.
One day one of the boys from that video might be an AFL star. Or they might not be – it doesn’t really matter.
What matters is that in 10 years time, those kids running around playing footy with friends from many different backgrounds will be adults. They will all know that people who seem different at first are not to be hated, or feared. They’ll know that they make great mates.
All because of a funny-shaped ball.
As Dae says, footy is an awesome game.