The Roar
The Roar

AFL
Advertisement

Shanghai is the next stop on the way to Aussie rules finally going international

Expert
23rd April, 2018
Advertisement
The Gold Coast Suns hosted Port Adelaide Power at Shanghai's Jiangwan Sports Stadium in 2017. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images)
Expert
23rd April, 2018
199
3037 Reads

When did you first fall in love with your favourite sporting code? In my case – and I imagine it is the same for many – it started very young.

I was born in country Victoria. My dad spent the earlier years of his life following Collingwood everywhere they went, my brother mourned Essendon’s ’99 preliminary final loss like the death of a family member.

Is it any wonder that I grew up entrenched in the belief that there is no better sporting code on earth than this one?

In all the time since that has followed, I’ve never been the kind of person who was at all bothered with the game’s lack of an international presence.

To this day I continue to be amused and bemused by ‘code wars’ quarrels that use the size of different sports on a global level as a measuring stick.

If global popularity was at all congruous with the quality of a code, then it would be a fair argument. But surely we can all recognise that the big-scale forces of history and entrenched culture are the telling factors behind what codes we love and why.

It is, after all, hardly a coincidence that all the parts of the world where cricket is beloved are former British colonies.

The ‘world game’ of association football owes most of its popularity to Christopher Columbus, who died three and a half centuries before it was ever played.

Advertisement

And like so many Australians who live below the Barrassi line – and so few people who live anywhere else on the planet Earth – I am a rusted-on AFL fanatic.

Maybe if Australia conquers and colonises a big chunk of the world we could rapidly expand the game’s stature. I won’t be holding my breath on that one, personally.

Instead in our modern world if you want to grow a sport without regular swathes of violent cultural upheaval, it is a gradual process.

This is something that the AFL continues to show interest in. Most tangibly, we are seeing it now in the form of Gold Coast and Port Adelaide returning to Shanghai in Round 9 to play for points on Chinese soil.

Port Adelaide, in particular, have made a significant investment in trying to grow the game in China over the past few years.

Their matches have appeared on Chinese TV, they sponsor the South China Australian Football League, they host Chinese students at their games in Adelaide and run programs in Chinese schools.

Are Chinese kids falling in love with Australian rules football? You’d have to ask them. But, like I once was, they’re being given the chance to.

Advertisement

Passion is one of those ineffable things in life and no one can quite explain why it arises when it does. It wouldn’t be the same if you could.

china-flag

China flag (Wikimedia commons)

Without a doubt, though, Australian rules football is something people often wind up being passionate about. Put it in front of enough people and it will spark a fire in some.

It may only ever be a drop in the ocean – after all, we’re not the only code looking at China as an area of potential growth, and many others are much larger and better-resourced.

Maybe the idea of Australian rules as a truly global game seems farfetched and a bit silly. But so too once did the idea of Canadian, American, Sudanese and Irish players in the AFL.

I can’t tell you whether or not anything of note will shoot up from the seeds that are being planted in China.

What I can definitely tell you is that if you don’t plant seeds, only then is it certain that nothing will grow.

Advertisement

Maybe this year some Chinese kids in the crowd will begin a lifelong love affair with Australian rules football.

As someone currently in the middle of one, I sure hope they do.

Our friends at Cathay Pacific currently offer five flights a week from Adelaide to Hong Kong, with a sixth weekly service launching from 28 October 2018. The new split schedule will have early afternoon and early evening departures from Adelaide, allowing more flexibility for you to connect with their network of destinations throughout China. In celebration of the upcoming Gold Coast and Port Adelaide round 9 match, they’re offering special 2018 PAFC Shanghai packages to the game. Find out more here!

close