Opinion
The NRL is becoming more multicultural by the day, while the AFL is getting whiter.
And at AFL HQ, they’re getting worried.
The NRL has been heading this way for some time. A touch over half the playing population is Pasifika or Maori – 51 per cent to be exact. A further 12 per cent is Indigenous.
Of the 550-odd NRL players, 27 per cent were born overseas, 57 per cent have a father born overseas, 47 per cent have a mother born overseas and 68 per cent have a grandparent born overseas.
In the AFL, it is an entirely different story. The elite level of the game is getting whiter by the year.
About 14 per cent of the 800-odd AFL players are “multicultural” – as in, they have a parent born overseas or were born overseas themselves.
There has been an increase in the number of players of African descent, but there is only an average of about one per club. It is hoped this number will grow rapidly during the next decade or two.
Alarmingly,the game’s Indigenous population is declining, and the AFL is in a panic.
Only 62 listed players – or 7.5 per cent of the playing group – are Indigenous.
That’s down from 86 in 2020, and is a 20-year low. The number is even worse when you consider there are now 18 clubs. Twenty years ago, there were 16. Despite the increase in the number of players in the league, the number of Indigenous players fell.
In 2025, just nine First Nations players were drafted by clubs, while 11 retired.
The AFL has set a target of 81 by 2030 and flagged radical incentives for clubs to recruit First Nations players. One suggestion is that clubs must have dedicated Indigenous list spots.
Last Friday, the AFL’s general manager for First Nations engagement, Taryn Lee, told this masthead: “We will work with clubs to better understand what other incentives will be meaningful and aligned to KPIs.”
That quote is probably half the problem: it’s management gobbledegook. The question for the AFL is: why are clubs shying away from highly talented Indigenous players, some of whom have challenging backgrounds, and instead targeting readymade private school kids who can slip into rigid club systems with ease?
The numbers tell the story.
Incredibly, a little more than 70 per cent of all AFL players were privately educated. In 2024, 24 of the top 30 draft picks attended a private school. Most of them are in Melbourne – the top schools over the years being Xavier College and Caulfield Grammar.
Professor John Funder AO, an eminent Victorian scientific and medical researcher with more than 600 papers published, conducted an in-depth study into the educational backgrounds of AFL players.
He found there was a “four times rule”, where a youngster’s chances of being picked up in the draft were four times higher if he went to a private school rather than a public school.
What’s going on has been called an “arms race” among schools driven by money, elite facilities and aggressive scholarship programs.
Standout juniors are strongly recruited by private schools. Once there, they receive elite coaching with first-class facilities.
Only a few of the kids in those school programs are Indigenous. Cyril Rioli, for example, left the Tiwi Islands as a teenager for a scholarship at Scotch College.
AFL clubs, in turn, are more likely to recruit products from these systems, as they have been indoctrinated into a football way of life, are well coached and are “push button ready” to join an elite club.
In contrast, Indigenous players from remote parts of Australia, in some cases, can have more complexities in their lives than an elite kid from Melbourne or Geelong Grammar.
Cultural issues have played out recently with race-driven scandals at Hawthorn, Adelaide and Collingwood.
The result at AFL clubs is this: more elite private school kids and fewer Indigenous kids.
The cycle starts with elite schools chasing talented kids because football success keeps the cashed-up “old boys network” happy.
Happy old boys means more donations for an even better gyms and better coaches, such as former Essendon champion Matthew Lloyd at Haileybury, where he has coached the First XVIII to multiple premierships.
Melbourne Grammar has the “Marn Grook club”, which was formed by old boys and parents purely to bolster footy.
The same thing happens with GPS schools chasing rugby success in Brisbane and Sydney. First XV glory equals greater generosity from old boys.
When the AFL addresses its First Nations issue, it can go on about incentives and programs all it likes, but it must first address that core problem.
While rugby league celebrates its multiculturalism, as it should, it too comes with a price. Many parents do not want their kids playing in age competitions when children of Polynesian backgrounds are often bigger than caucasian children at the same age.
Polynesians are naturally drawn to rugby league for many reasons: league and union are played on their islands, and if they come to Australia they are more likely to migrate to Queensland and NSW than the southern states, as they are geographically closer.
Their natural physiques are also far more suited to league than AFL.
The sheer size of Polynesian kids can frighten parents off. And some kids, too. Why get belted when you can go and play soccer?
That’s a problem that can be solved by weight-based competitions, but officials have been too slow to move in this direction.
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Neil Breen is the national sports editor and a Walkley Award-winning journalist.Connect via X.