With sport being part of Australian culture, it is important that all codes do the best they can to inform young Australians about racial vilification. The racism that occurs in sport is horrible to listen to and should never happen.
The AFL are beginning to see the issue as important and are doing something about it. With the introduction of both the Indigenous and Multicultural programs, the AFL have set themselves up to stop racism from occurring out on the sporting field.
Through these programs, the AFL will aim to teach young kids about racism and try to make the code a place of racial harmony where everyone can play together. In 2013, 25 percent of the AFL list comes from an indigenous or other cultural background, which shows how far the game has come.
The Multicultural program has been a very successful program that has been running since 2011. It’s effective because it is targeted at young kids and makes them aware of the issue, sending them the message that it doesn’t matter where you come from – everybody is equal.
The AFL are also to be congratulated for picking great ambassadors for this program, with the likes of Nic Naitanui, Harry O’Brien, Ahmed Saad and Bachar Houli – the latter, who made new friends by kicking the footy in the street when he was growing up, from a Lebanese background.
This shows that sport does create racial harmony.
With this program being designed for kids, the AFL have brought in a school competition called the Multicultural Cup, where schools play against each other with the aim to meet new kids from different background – just like Bachar Houli did.
The AFL have also sent players out to schools to talk to the kids about racism. They’re cleverly targeting school kids in this program because they are the future and will understand that racism is not tolerated.
I find it appalling that in a modern day society racial vilification occurs towards Indigenous Australians. They are one of us – Australian.
The AFL has recognised this by creating the Indigenous program that began in 2005 to raise awareness of this issue, but sadly it is still happening.
It was only this year when Adam Goodes was racially abused by a 13-year-old girl. Like Goodes, Nicky Winmar was also racially abused one day at Victoria Park in 1993.
After being racially abused all day, Winmar lifted his top showing the colour of his skin showing that he was proud to be Indigenous. This started the process in stopping racial vilification on the footy field.
It is situations like these when these programs are needed the most because they allow people to be educated about the issue and teach them that racism is not tolerated.
The AFL’s Indigenous round has been very successful since it began in 2005, with the clash between Essendon and Richmond generating lots of awareness around the issue.
The “Racism. It Stops with Me” campaign was created by the Australian Human Rights Commission to stop racism in Australia.
The main focus was on athletes of all sporting codes to come together and make a statement showing that they will not tolerate racial abuse on the sporting field or in general.
Whether they like it or not, athletes are role models and young kids look up to them and idolise them. So if their favourite player is seen standing up against racial vilification, the child will do the same and understand that racism is wrong.
The AFL are doing enough to tackle the issue and have recognised that there was an issue with racism and are trying fix it.
I believe that through these programs and supporting the Australian Human Rights Commission’s campaign, the AFL are on their way to creating racial harmony.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.
With the national competition, the premiership-winning coach says some games it was hard to feel the occasion such as ANZAC Round - and it's…
Eight weeks is usually the point where the AFL ladder has taken its shape for the season - and thanks to Opening Round, that's…
There's some high standards at Sydney!
Wouldn't want to be Jack Scrimshaw right now!
Jack Petruccelle gave up a 50m penalty and a goal to young Sun Will Graham, after spoiling the ball away after it had gone…
Dimma was not happy with this kick out of bounds on the full from Touk Miller!
