Australian Football was included as a demonstration sport at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne.
By all accounts it was a success, but there is no doubt that newcomers who attended the match were left thinking “how could I possibly bring this back home? Where would I find such a large field to play on? And how would I install 4 large posts at each end?”
It would surprise many to learn that Aussie Rules is now played at a grassroots level in over 50 countries. Vibrant competitions exist in such places as the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia and the Pacific.
But if we want to make our great game truly international, we have to recognize that we have been selling it wrong. We have to remove the participation barriers and make it much easier to play.
The vast majority of the world’s sporting fields are rectangular. If we can play on these fields, a whole world of possibilities await. We can confine our game to a population of 27 million, or we can open it up to a market of 8 billion.
Footy 9s
Australian Football International (AFI) has spent many years developing Footy 9s, to allow our game to be played on rectangular fields throughout the world, using existing field markings. We have to make it easier for newcomers to play our game, and Footy 9s allows them to do just that. In a nutshell, you can turn up to any rectangular field in the world, and all you need is a footy.
There are no behind posts in Footy 9s as they are simply not needed. We want to showcase our game as high-scoring, but not have so much scoring that the appeal of the game is diluted.
In 2020 we announced a 20 year strategy to have Footy 9s included in the Olympic Games. In this regard we are following in the footsteps of Rugby 7s, which made its debut at the 2016 Games in Rio.
It is fantastic that Brisbane has been announced as the host of the 2032 Olympic Games. How good would it be to see Footy 9s included as a demonstration sport in Queensland?
And, by 2040, see Footy 9s included as a fully-fledged international sport, with Gold medals up for grabs in both the Men’s and Women’s competitions.
Of course, there will always be naysayers that will say it will never happen. Yet if we were told at the Sydney Olympics that skateboarding, climbing and breakdancing would all be future inclusions to the Games, what would we have said?
Our great game of Australian Rules Football sells itself. But let’s sell it better and make it much easier to play all over the globe. If we build it, they will come.