Australian Football’s opportunity

The Indigenous population is three per cent of the total Australian population but when you look at AFL they have nine percent and Rugby League has 12 percent of Indigenous athletes who play their sports, but football has less than one percent Indigenous representation in the A-League.

It’s because the other codes like AFL, Rugby League, Rugby Union and even Cricket have all these programs out there.

But there is an opportunity there for Australian football. If you watch Indigenous players who play in the AFL, you can see how skilful they are and their ball skills and the speed they possess. If you look at the NRL a lot of the Indigenous boys play in key positions as well.

So, it’s a great opportunity for Indigenous kids to show their skills in football. That is something that I will be focusing on. I want to get more kids playing the round ball game.

I’ve had numerous conversations over the years with FFA about Indigenous football. It’s a tough one. I can totally understand that the FFA are busy with the things that they want to do so if you want to do things you have to try and do it yourself.

If you do a good job people will start to wake up and have a look and realise there is an opportunity to give back to the first people of this nation to play the biggest sport in the world.

We have so much talent in our own backyard, whether it’s spread across Queensland, Central Australia or South Australia, there is untapped Indigenous talent everywhere. It’s just a matter of creating these programs and finding them so these kids can have opportunities.