IEC Cup bringing change
Greater Western Sydney GIANTS assistant coach Mark Williams is looking far and wide for supporters of the AFL’s 18th club.
On Wednesday, the GIANTS hosted over 120 newly arrived migrant and refugee children to play in a modified AFL program for the very first time – the Intensive English Centre’s Cup.
For many of the multicultural youth it was their first taste of AFL having recently fled the hardship and wars which have devastated their homes such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.
Despite AFL being relatively unknown among the 60 percent of immigrants to Australia who reside in western Sydney, Williams said the club will do whatever it takes to provide everyone with an opportunity to get involved in AFL.
“There’s 100 different cultures living in western Sydney here and 1.9 million people out this way and it just gives us a great opportunity to show them how warm and embracing AFL is,” Williams said.
“You look around the AFL now and you see so many different people from different cultures playing which just shows the opportunities (available).
“Out here now, it’s an untapped market for us and we’re really lucky to be out here.
“It won’t be one week, one month or one year even, but it will be a generational change, it will take time … and we will take time to develop the people in this area so they can understand, follow the game and be supporters.”
With large communities hailing from Africa, Asia and the Middle East in Sydney’s west, the GIANTS will toil long and hard to spread the AFL word among people who are more accustomed to the round ball in soccer than the egg-shaped Sherrin.
Williams is the perfect candidate to get involved in community engagement programs at the GIANTS having been part of two start-up clubs in the past as a player for the Brisbane Bears and an assistant coach in the inaugural Port Adelaide AFL team.
The former premiership coach has also found an ally in NRL recruit Israel Folau, whose Tongan parents moved to Minto, NSW before he was born.
“I’ve been learning a little bit from Israel (Folau), I’ve been talking to him about what his parents, family and friends know about AFL,” Williams said.
“This is a different culture and a different set up than the traditional (AFL) states and we’ve got to bend over backwards to show them that we care about them learning the game. We have to break it down.
“Israel’s parents don’t know much about the AFL and we need to show them the skills, what the rules are, what the umpires are doing and the scoring system.”
It will only be a matter of time until the GIANTS’ supporter and player base develops in Sydney’s west as more multicultural and indigenous programs are established.
The IEC Cup is one program which brings together migrant and newly arrived children to Australia to provide them with an opportunity to experience a new sport and meet friends as they settle into their new lives.
Run by AFL NSW/ACT, the multicultural program has been teaching AFL to thousands of kids in seven intensive English classrooms for the past three years.
