GIANTS Head of Community Ali Faraj is taking on the next frontier in football diversity, taking part in a program to place multicultural coaches within clubs for the rest of the season.
The idea, which was developed in conjunction with the AFL Coaches' Association, has been brought to life by the GIANTS, St Kilda, Essendon, Carlton, the Brisbane Lions and Sydney Swans.
The clubs have each taken on one amateur coach from community football, with the successful candidates coming from Korean, Chinese, African, Vietnamese and Middle Eastern backgrounds.
Faraj has been part of the GIANTS since their inception. Born and raised in a Lebanese family in Western Sydney, he attended Granville High School and tried AFL at North Shore in 2009.
Last year Faraj was named the club’s Head of Community and recognised for his extensive work with the multitude of multicultural communities in Western Sydney and his knowledge and experience of multicultural issues and helping deliver harmony and social cohesion outcomes.
Faraj has also been instrumental in setting up GIANTS Care, the club's groundbreaking community program that has seen the GIANTS double its community initiatives in Sydney's west.
“I saw this as a great opportunity for me to get involved at the elite level. For me to learn and then take it back to grass roots and coaching programs I’m currently involved in,” Faraj said.
“I’m coaching the All Australian Disability team this year and I’m coaching the NSW Disability team for kids with intellectual disabilities and it provides me with a lot more structure to the way I coach.”
To apply for the program, applicants needed to be coaching at youth to senior level, hold a Level One AFL Coach Accreditation and to have been born, or to have at least one parent born, in a country from the Middle East, Africa or Asia.
VISIT OUR MULTICULTURAL ROUND HUB
As part of the pilot program, which will be assessed at the end of the year, the coaches will be spending one training day at their clubs during the week, as well as match days.
“To learn from professional coaches such as Leon Cameron, Al McConnell, Luke Power, Dean Brogan; it gives you more insight to the way you can deliver and learning styles of different players and coaches in the way they get a message across the line and the way they set up structures for a team,” Faraj said.
“Some of the times I’m in here at the club working on match committee, captain’s run, training and then at the games I’m sitting in the coaches box.
“It will switch around where I get a chance to sit on the bench, do statistics, hold the board.
“The important thing for me is to sit there and take it all in, absorb all the information, absorb the experience and enjoy it at the same time as learning.”
AFL football operations manager Mark Evans said if the program was deemed successful by the clubs and participants it would expand significantly in 2017.
"The big picture is the AFL's desire to make sure it is representative of all of Australia and it has a lens towards diversity," Evans told AFL.com.au.
"The participants of the game, the officials, the coaches and the administrators all need to reflect that.
"We think this is a great opportunity to accelerate the development of all of these people who will then inspire a new range of community to come to and enjoy our game."
The AFL has recognised a significant gap between the number of amateur and elite-level coaches with a multicultural background and the general community.
Only 10 per cent of community football coaches were born overseas, while 15 per cent have one parent who was born overseas.
"The insight of coaching and umpiring and football administration at the higher end is quite difficult, because the normal pathway is that you've come from a very strong footballing background," Evans said.
"So if we have the ability to accelerate the development of the people who are well placed, I just think that's a brilliant opportunity we shouldn't miss."
The AFLCA has an aspirational vision for the program that it will accept 36 new coaches each year on 12-month internships.
The multicultural criteria are consistent with the AFL’s Next Generation Academies program, which could also present a career pathway for coaches once they leave their AFL clubs.
"We need to create role models and a pathway for multicultural people to see themselves in the game, particularly in coaching," AFL diversity manager Ali Fahour said.
"When you see them on TV, in the coach's box, on the bench, in the huddle, people might see themselves out there and they'll become role models for people of their background."
Faraj said he hoped to be part of another first for the GIANTS.
“It’s a great opportunity for us at the GIANTS to one day recruit someone from Western Sydney and it provides me with the education to be able to identify someone and at the same time support that person,” he said.
“Hopefully I can be a means to getting the first Multicultural and Indigenous kids out of Western Sydney to play for the GIANTS.”
