The AFL’s latest attempt to establish an international presence by turning its attention towards India is one filled with hope rather than with any guarantee of success. But AFL boss Andrew Dillon’s announcement alongside Anthony Albanese and India’s visiting prime minister Narendra Modi of a long-term plan to open up a new frontier shows the move comes with the right backing, being as much about strengthening ties between India and Australia as growing the game.
The goal is to have more than 100,000 registered participants in India over the noticeably fluid “coming years”, as the AFL formally picks up the ball from the local volunteers and community leaders who have promoted and developed the sport organically. More than 20,000 people have “participated” in Australian rules football since it was introduced in India in 2008, the league said while announcing its plan, leaving plenty of room for growth in the world’s most populous nation.
The AFL’s long-term strategy for what it says is its “fastest-growing international market” will begin with expanding junior and grassroots participation through schools, academies, coaching and umpiring programs. It also includes plans to establish an AFL India talent academy, strengthen national competitions and representative pathways, and invest in women’s and girls’ participation and leadership programs. Tens of thousands of Sherrin footballs and other equipment will be delivered to local communities, with the greater aim for Australian rules football to be played in every Indian state and school.
These are lofty goals and the AFL has been here before when testing the theory that “if you build it, they will come” – in China and New Zealand, not to mention its protracted attempts to meaningfully infiltrate western Sydney. Three official AFL matches were held in Shanghai between 2017 and 2019, while the first match played outside Australia for premiership points was hosted in Wellington in 2013. Exhibition games have been held in the UK, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa with next to no impact beyond entertaining expat communities and too few curious locals, before each of those expansion plans were swiftly abandoned.
This time it might just be different with the AFL committing to building from the ground up rather than simply dropping an elite level match into a foreign land. It helps that India’s runaway favourite pastime is a bond that it shares with Australia. Australian rules football originated more than 160 years ago in part to help cricketers maintain fitness during the winter months, and both sports at local and elite levels are still played on oval-shaped – and often shared – fields. Although cricket grounds in India are rarely, if ever, shared with other sports, it is no coincidence that the announcement from Dillon, Albanese and Modi was made at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The AFL might also be salivating over where it might one day host an official match in the distant market with the Board of Control for Cricket in India listing 14 venues suitable for international matches ranging from capacities of 21,000 in Dharamsala to more than 130,000 in Ahmedabad.
While the AFL begins to dip a toe in yet another expansion market, it has already taken steps to engage Australia’s fastest growing diaspora closer to home. Hindi broadcasts of AFL matches, the AFL Khel digital media channels, the Next Generation Academy, a cultural heritage series, and an AFL community and school connect program are among the local initiatives that are part of what is now a much grander plan. It makes sense when an estimated national population of 27.6 million last year includes 971,020 people born in India, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and makes up the largest group born overseas for the first time (ahead of England on 970,950).
The spike from an estimated Indian-born population of 449,040 in 2015 has not necessarily flowed into Australian rules football at a local level let alone all the way up to the AFL. The idea that some suburbs and towns in the AFL’s heartland states are seeing their local football clubs get weaker while their cricket teams get stronger points to the population shifts and their corresponding sporting interests, as well as the indigenous sport’s failure to reach newer communities.
Meanwhile, the AFL is still waiting for a player with two parents of Indian heritage to play in the top-tier of the sport. Jai Saxena became just the second player with dual Indian heritage to join an AFL list when Collingwood picked up the small forward as a rookie last year though he is still to debut, while Balraj Singh was drafted to Adelaide in 1999 but was delisted a year later without playing a senior game. Daniel Kerr remains the most prominent of the few players with Indian heritage to reach the top level, while others include Ben McNiece, Alex Morgan and Blaine Boekhorst in the AFL and Zoe Savarirayan in the AFLW.
The Western Bulldogs CEO Ameet Bains has already expressed an interest in being among the clubs to play a match for premiership points in India, if and when the AFL is ready to further commit to the region, no doubt as it aims to reach and attract new fans. For now, the AFL is right to take the lead and invest at home and away as it searches for the next pioneers to change the way that the game needs to look in future years.
