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I write this having come from the funeral of the West Perth and Buffaloes great Bill Dempsey. I mention this because Dempsey is the first Northern Territory player to play on the MCG. He was a trailblazer that set the scene so many other Territorians like Long, Rioli, Burgoyne, White and McLeod could follow. Demspey’s legacy came about by chance, as he was the support act for the talented Darwin recruit Jimmy Anderson when they both came down to Melbourne in the late 1950s. Anderson lasted a few weeks. Dempsey went on to play more than 500 games and receive an MBE.
Their stories are instructive given the current situation the game finds itself in and the declining number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players in the AFL. In 2020, 87 Indigenous players were playing in the top men’s competition. In 2025-26 the number sits at 62, the lowest in two decades and an approximate 30% downturn. If this was the decline in pie sales, shit would hit the fan.
Let me qualify this. I worked at the AFL from late 2019 until mid 2025 and my initial work was reviewing the AFL’s vilification rule, now known as rule 35 or the “Peek Rule”. Before this I led national research teams looking at racism in the AFL. I have attended every All Stars camp since 2009 and up until last year’s game in Perth. I have seen reams of butcher’s paper with Indigenous players feedback. I have attended and presented many times on issues of Indigenous welfare and football history at clubs and AFL events. So, it is exasperating to see the AFL’s First Nations Strategy rake over the coals of work undertaken in the last 20 years and not acknowledge it.
Instead of celebrating the growth of the cohort, the AFL is left scratching its head regarding its decline. To be fair the situation has been exacerbated by the realities the pandemic created. Covid-19 wreaked havoc on junior competitions, especially those in regional and remote areas where numbers are harder to maintain and the behaviours that boredom loves seep in quicker. This compromises the pathway from the beginning. Then everything else suffers.
I know from many interviews and discussions with First Nations players the sacrifices they have made to play football. These are not just the usual indicators regarding application and conditioning. It comes from transitioning into the professional ecosystem, and the disconnections from community, country and kinship networks that takes the greatest toll. Family, and the concept of it, is different for Indigenous Australians to that of the colonisers because of the history that underpins it. Hence, the issue of obligation and responsibility becomes magnified because of that history and the greater weight that things like the Stolen Generations has had. Dempsey is a member of that cohort, as are Syd Jackson and Polly Farmer. It is in that magnification that the player must consider the worth of commencing, sticking with it or stepping away from a game they love. It’s a principled decision. Not a weakness.
The problem as I see it, and have experienced, is not the skill level or the desire of the Indigenous player to want to play the game at the elite level. Much of the time it is the support, or lack of it, at club level and the inability for the administration and the union to work in concert with one another that creates the cracks that players fall into. This has been spoken about and studied at length. If Indigenous players are not feeling supported, understood or safe they disconnect, which sees clubs become hardened to the recruitment of Indigenous players. This then feeds into deficit theories like, “Indigenous players cannot handle the pressure”, or “they lack discipline and are unreliable”.
Think back to the reportage around Willie Rioli, Liam Jurrah, or Sydney Stack. It is through the prism of deficit that Indigenous players are deemed to need salvation, when what is needed is for the AFL ecosystem to become more cohesive in its delivery of care. As one Indigenous premiership player said to me, “the only reason the club cared about me is if I got the pill”.
Clubs, recruiters, coaching staff, the AFL and the AFLPA need to become more consolidated on the issue of support and cultural safety. Until the AFL commission takes stock and demands actual measurable outcomes, the “blueprint” and the KPIs of the AFL First Nations Strategy – to increase the number of players and draftees in the AFL and AFLW – won’t hold.
If you don’t believe me, I will leave you with this – the ghost of Adam Goodes. The dual Brownlow medallist’s career needs no further delineation. What it needs is context. At the 2022 Indigenous and Multicultural Summit in Geelong, AFL and AFLW players gathered for tailored sessions. The primary take-out was that if Goodes could be run out of the code, then so could they. That vulnerability with the lack of cohesion and demonstrative support makes the sentiment “to better understand player experiences and club environments to support retention” at best, opaque. This is suggested because platitudes to address a serious matter are as useful as a flat Sherrin.
This issue needs robust, rigorous data, and deep, cultural engagement to properly assess the way forward. And so the legacies of Dempsey and Goodes, who sacrificed so much so that we could enjoy the game, can be appreciated and grown even more.
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