AFL system failing to engage Indigenous players amid slump in numbers

Indigenous Professor John Evans speaks on declining Aboriginal playing numbers (Image: Swinburne University of Technology).

An AFL system fixated on discovering the most elite Indigenous footballers has been blamed for declining numbers in recent years by a leading Aboriginal sports academic.

Proud Wiradjuri man Professor John Evans believes there is a range of factors behind the recent figures that have calculated AFL-listed Indigenous players in the competition slide from 87 to 71 players, and has found the policy of the code’s administrator is disengaging Aboriginal players.

Evans, who is not only the pro Vice-Chancellor of Indigenous engagement for Swinburne University of Technology, but also equipped to speak on football matters with a master’s degrees in both elite sports coaching and sports science.

The Hawthorn-based professor’s university also sponsors Richmond while personally declaring an interest on the Essendon First Nations advisory council for the club.

The concern around the five-year low in playing numbers allegedly centres around a tunnel-vision system that the AFL employs to search for Indigenous footballers.

“What happens is that kids get identified at 15 or 16, as being the future elite players and that then casts them into the system – they’re the only players, traditionally, which the AFL looks at,” Evans told ABC Melbourne Mornings radio on Wednesday.

“If you’re outside that it’s very difficult to get your nose back in the system – now I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it is very, very difficult.

“The challenge in the future is how do we widen the game to make sure it’s accessible to as many (Indigenous) people as possible in the areas that they live.”

While the AFL saturates the sporting market to deliver strong participation rates early in the lives of many youngsters across all of Australia through its Auskick program, Evans said the will to play the game seriously past mid-teenage years drops off outside of urban areas for Indigenous participants.

Evans, who is responsible for leading, guiding and governing strategic direction at the university relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander initiatives and strategies in the new role, does not believe the love of the game is lost but the AFL has to change its methods that affects places of large Indigenous community numbers.

“I think there’s plenty of interest out there – you just have go out to large regional towns, country areas, missions and reserves, and there’s lots of kids out there still playing the game, boys and girls,” he said.

“I think it comes down to the recruitment process, how the kids are getting into the system or how they're left out of the system that is preventing the take up now at elite levels.”

The alleged racism saga that has three former players, an official and the wives of two of the players in conciliation with Hawthorn that has dragged on publicly for most of this decade was an added factor for some communities withdrawing from the organised game.

“When that controversy comes to light, people will react to it,” Evans said.

Evans said that clubs, who the AFL has placed the onus on developing predominantly Indigenous (Next Generation) academies for the sport nationally, need to appear all on the same page to encourage Indigenous communities to embrace their acceptance.

“I think some clubs are more welcoming than others,” Evans, a dedicated St Kilda fan, said.

“If you see what happened with Collingwood, then Collingwood had a problem, they went through a process of reviewing the club and they made some changes.

“So now you have got Aboriginal players there who now fill like they are a part of the culture of the place.

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“Not all clubs do it well nor do all clubs do it the same.

“I think the culture within a club of how embracing it is of those players makes a big difference to their long-term success at that particular numbers.”

Evans added that the AFL and its clubs need to have a “culture of commitment to the sport in a whole heap of areas”.

The AFL has increased the Sir Doug Nicholls round to two Indigenous rounds in recent seasons that includes Indigenous-designed guernseys for the matches and Welcome to Country ceremonies.

Evans accepts that recent retirements of Indigenous stars has slightly skewed the recent figures, but he is also equally convinced that the next crop of players are not in the AFL system either.

As the National Indigenous Times has published previously, only four First Nations players were selected in last year’s under-16 national championships out of possibly more than 100 state players named, which has alarmed club recruiters ahead of the 2025 and 2026 AFL drafts.

AFL recruiting guru Kevin Sheehan can list just three Indigenous players 18 or under, who will be in contention for a spot at AFL clubs next year courtesy of the 2024 drafts.

“What you’re going to have over the next couple of years is this massive drop off, and there is no way to rectify that in the short term,” Evans said.

But Evans suggested that AFL development should never stop investing in the game at all levels to give a clear path for overlooked mature-aged players and to stop paying “lip service” to communities.

“We can say that there is always all these Indigenous kids in the AFL, but the point is what happens in their hometown, what happens in their schools, what happens in the clubs they play in doesn’t always mean they’re going to flow to the elite end,” he said.

“What you could say is that they are not doing enough to engrain the game into the communities.

“You’ve got to have competitions, you’ve got to have clubs accessing the sport in a way that means people are going to continue to play.

“If for instance you’re in a large regional town and you miss out on a representative team, then what’s next for you – what’s the other pathways?

That may in some cases be to switch sports altogether.

Evans also believes competition between football codes has never been greater than it is now, saying it has become more of a battle of a “resource competition issue” than an equality issue.

“At the moment, there is a massive competition between codes, especially if you go to non-AFL dominant states like Queensland or New South Wales where for that athlete that gets identified early, that they have a choice of rugby league, rugby union, AFL (football) and basketball mainly,” he said.

“There is competition for that good athlete and this is maybe where we often see how we identify players can be a bit of an issue because we’re always testing to see how good they are and then we decide whether they are going to make it or not.”

Courtesy: National Indigenous Times

Photo Courtesy: Nationals Indigenous Times