Diversity in the Azkals…

We have a lot of half-Filipinos and half-Europeans. A lot of them have experience back in their home countries, some have played at a high level and some are still playing at a very high level.

In the Philippines, basketball is their national sport and you see it’s mainly full Filipinos. If we look at most of the national teams these days, there are a lot of mixed-born players representing national teams.

Maybe in the Philippines it’s a bit more focused because in our team there are so many half-Filipinos and you can tell there’s a mix there. We definitely still have a few full-blooded Filipinos in the side, so it’s nice to see a mix from my perspective.

What I would like to see change in the A-League…

I’m really enjoying my time with Felda United FC in Malaysia. My wife is Maltese-Australian and we’re expecting our second child in September. I love Malaysia, I really embrace their culture and it’s an English speaking country as well, so it’s easy to get by. There are a few Aussies here - former A-League boys Robbie Cornthwaite, Brendan Gan, Zac Anderson and Curran Singh Ferns, who’s my teammate at Felda.

 When I started my career, all I thought about was about going back to the UK. When you’re growing up, you’re thinking of leagues like where Mooysie (Aaron Mooy) is now - like the Premier League or the Championship. Coming from the A-League, it’s where I wanted to go. After Melbourne, I then went straight to Iran and now the ride is definitely in Asia.

It’s very interesting to see in the past five or six years how many Aussies from the A-League are playing in Asia. The unfortunate thing is back in Australia, financially we can’t make the money that we can in Asia. If the money in Asia was in Australia then I definitely don’t think anyone would want to leave because of the lifestyle. It might be a sacrifice to be doing what we’re doing, living in Asia.

They’re able to afford decent foreigners coming from South America and Europe. You can definitely see the quality certain foreigners have in Malaysia because the clubs can afford it. 

There needs to be some changes so Australia can hang on to certain players. More often than not you’re seeing players wanting to leave for Asia who’ve been in the A-League for a while, to make some coin.

We definitely have a few foreigners in the A-League that are doing well and in these last couple of years, we had bigger foreign names attracting larger crowds. I really hope the league can be sustained and the league will be fine from that perspective. Growing up in Australia, I want to see the A-League progress and do really well.

As told to Clement Tito…