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Indigenous player inclusion in the Australian Football League

Justine Ferrer (Department of Management, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia)
Paul Turner (Department of Management, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia)

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

ISSN: 2040-7149

Article publication date: 21 August 2017

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to audit the efforts made around the support of indigenous players within the Australian Football League (AFL).

Design/methodology/approach

Content analysis of the publicly available information on websites of organizations associated with the AFL was undertaken to identify the extent of programs and policies around indigenous representation, inclusion, and development.

Findings

The AFL, as an organization, has a high percentage of indigenous players (employees) in comparison to the wider Australian workforce representation. Largely, indigenous representation within the AFL is merit based, prioritized on an individual’s ability to play football at an elite level. The website audit identified a number of inconsistencies in the public personas portrayed by the AFL and organizations aligned to it such as the AFL Players Association and clubs. The findings raise a number of questions for future research.

Research limitations/implications

The main limitation is that the website audit represents a very small insight into the current situation and does not provide a depth of analysis into the circumstances around indigenous inclusion within the AFL. The audit also is very focused on one sporting organization which may or may not be representative of the sport industry.

Originality/value

The research introduces a number of questions for future discovery.

Keywords

Citation

Ferrer, J. and Turner, P. (2017), "Indigenous player inclusion in the Australian Football League", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 36 No. 6, pp. 519-532. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-03-2017-0063

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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