The alarming decline in the number of male Indigenous players in the AFL will continue into 2025 as clubs are likely to add just two to their lists this week.
It will see the number of Indigenous players on AFL lists fall from 71 this season to just 62 next year after 11 either retired or were delisted at the end of the 2024 season.
Malakai Champion playing for the AFL Academy team in 2024Credit: AFL Photos
West Australian Malakai Champion and the Northern Territory’s Ricky Mentha are the two Indigenous talents likely to be added to West Coast and Melbourne’s lists respectively.
Mentha is expected to become a Category B rookie at the Demons after the draft, while Champion will be either added via the national draft or as a Category B rookie, with a bid during the draft possible.
Those players are part of each club’s Next Generation Academy (NGA) program and have spent time at the respective clubs, with Mentha playing for Gippsland Power in 2024.
If neither Champion nor Mentha are chosen in the national draft (and instead added to their clubs’ lists as Category B rookies post-draft), it will be the first year since the modern national draft started 38 years ago in 1986 that not one Indigenous player has been selected in the draft proper.
Rome Burgoyne, the son of Port Adelaide premiership player Peter, has not been nominated by the Power as a father-son and is only considered an outside chance of being picked up, while the Northern Territory’s Waylon Davey-Motlop could surprise if a club is prepared to develop his enormous talent.
Former Essendon rookie Anthony Munkara is among this year’s national draft nominations but is unlikely to be selected, despite his form with the Tiwi Bombers in the NTFL.
Players who miss being added to AFL lists this week could find themselves on lists during 2025 via the pre-season supplemental selection process, or the mid-season draft.
Club recruiters pushed the onus back on the AFL to invest in pathways for Indigenous prospects after league representatives suggested at a meeting earlier this year they should draft more Indigenous players.
The AFL acknowledged the issue and two industry sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, said there are positive discussions occurring with state bodies to deliver more investment to create programs that foster the development of Indigenous youngsters.
The AFL Commission has committed 10 per cent of the game’s total assessable revenue to go towards game development. Applications for a new head of talent close on Monday, while Indigenous former Port Adelaide and Hawthorn player Chad Wingard has joined the AFL after his 218-game career ended through his retirement in September.
Chad Wingard has joined the AFL during a period when the number of Indigenous players on AFL lists is declining.Credit: Getty Images
The AFL provided each club with NGA programs with $70,000 in 2024 to run their program, according to two club sources who wished to remain anonymous to speak freely. It is then up to clubs to determine the level of investment they make in their programs.
The AFL adjusted the rules surrounding NGAs to give clubs priority access to graduates from their programs – giving them more incentive to invest in developing players in their NGA zones.
They are now allowed to match bids on their NGA players at any stage in the draft, rather than only if they are selected after pick 40, as was the rule for the past three national drafts.
AFL footy boss Laura Kane promised in May that the AFL would review NGA zones, while an AFL Indigenous All-Stars exhibition match will return in February next year, when an Indigenous side takes on Fremantle in Western Australia.
Carlton and Adelaide great Eddie Betts has independently developed the Eddie Betts Foundation, which saw players from its Elite Football Academy play against a team from Bachar Houli’s foundation on grand final eve. One of the Betts foundation’s stated aims is “to make talent pathways accessible for Aboriginal youth”.
Indigenous players who have retired or been delisted in 2024
- Tex Wanganeen (Essendon)
- Jayden Davey (Essendon)
- Josh Eyre (Collingwood)
- Nathan Kreuger (Collingwood)
- Brandan Parfitt (Geelong)
- Chad Wingard (Hawthorn)
- Conrad Williams (Port Adelaide)
- Matt Coulthard (Richmond)
- Marlion Pickett (Richmond)
- Cooper Vickery (Sydney)
- Jamaine Jones (West Coast)
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