‘Embarrassing, lacking credibility’: Indigenous greats slam AFL

A growing cohort of the game’s most decorated First Nations footballers has expressed deep disappointment in a new AFL subcommittee designed to address the falling numbers of Indigenous players across the AFL and AFLW.

All-Australians Shaun Burgoyne, Michael O’Loughlin and Michael Walters are among the retired AFL stars critical of the make-up and lack of Indigenous representation on the Greg Swann-led 16-member panel. The panel includes only three First Nations Australians, no one from the Northern Territory, NSW or Queensland, and minimal input from Western Australia.

Four-time premiership player Burgoyne led the chorus, telling this masthead: “I don’t think anyone apart from two people at AFL House knew they were going down this path. Not that I wanted to be on it, but who was consulted? There is altogether a lack of process.

“It would have been nice to get a phone call because I had a lot of people I would have recommended. Sonny [Michael] Walters would have had an opinion. Micky O [O’Loughlin] would have had an opinion.

“If growing numbers in New South Wales or Queensland are top priorities then where is the representation? If growing AFLW numbers, which are down again, [is a priority] then why are there only two women?

“If numbers out of the Northern Territory are down and there is talk of a 20th licence, why is no one from the NT on the panel? It’s embarrassing.”

Burgoyne, along with O’Loughlin, Walters, Eddie Betts, David Rodan, Daniel Motlop and Mathew Stokes, also communicated their shock at the exclusion of the game’s national AFL talent diversity manager Paul Vandenbergh – the most senior Indigenous football staffer at head office – from the panel.

“It lacks credibility because Paul Vandenbergh is not on it. If he leaves, then they [the AFL] have no credibility in this space. There are legends of the game who have lived experience throughout Australia who should have been a part of this.”

The AFL’s stated blueprint to lift Indigenous playing numbers comes with the current figures – 62 in the AFL – at a two-decade low. The AFLW averages just one First Nations player per club. The subcommittee is reportedly targeting 81 AFL and 29 AFLW Indigenous players by 2030, as this masthead exclusively reported in March.

AFL bosses downplayed the significance of the subcommittee when contacted by this masthead, saying it was a group charged specifically with determining list spot mechanics.

Taryn Lee, the game’s new general manager of First Nations and inclusion, said every club had been offered the opportunity to take part in an email circulated late last year.

Although the AFL’s official website described the new body as a “subcommittee”, Lee said it was more of a working group that would meet twice later this month. She could not explain why the AFL’s own media team had heralded it as a subcommittee.

“I presented the game’s First Nations strategy to the club CEOs late last year and the membership [of the panel] was formed in an organic way. The origins of this, and the intentions of this, were to work with the clubs on what the opportunities going forward were going to look like.

“What do we need to do to reach our goals? It’s not going to magically happen.”

When asked why the majority of the AFL’s First Nations staffers – most of whom work under Swann and his new football lieutenant and subcommittee member Justin Reid – had not been told about the working group Lee said: “I do my best to have an open relationship with everyone in the business.”

O’Loughlin, the Swans’ 303-game premiership player, and now club director, added: “This is such a major piece of work. I haven’t been consulted as one of the Indigenous board members, but I’m dumbfounded at Pauly Vandenbergh not being on it. It has to be addressed.

“The work he has done builds relationships with players from when they leave home through their post-football life. It’s pretty important to have a guy that’s got everyone’s ear and their hearts and minds.

“I just have the utmost respect and appreciation for what Pauly has been able to do. The Indigenous All-Stars game (in 2025) was a test case and a great success. That only happened because Paul and [former AFL executive] Tanya Hosch brought it all together.

“My sole focus now is being here in Sydney and our Swans First Nations program, but the programs we used to run at the AFL just dropped away. Like the All-Stars: If you can’t see it, you can’t be it.”

O’Loughlin owns and runs ARA Indigenous Services, an Indigenous-owned and operated cleaning and property maintenance service providing employment pathways and education for Indigenous Australians. He also founded the GO Foundation with Adam Goodes and remains a director.

Walters, forced out of AFL football due to chronic knee pain midway through last season after 239 games, now works for WA Football as its indigenous and multicultural relationship manager. He said this week: “The issue in NT is massive and in WA it’s massive. We need more eyes out there; it’s made up of so many areas.

“And especially when we are trying to grow the game in Queensland and New South Wales to have minimal representation [on the subcommittee]. I’m not sure how that works.”

West Coast’s new player movement manager and draft strategist Adam Shepard is one of nine club representatives from football, recruiting and list management on the subcommittee, with two representatives from the Adelaide Crows and the rest from Victorian clubs.

The First Nations panellists are Hosch’s AFL replacement Lee, her AFL colleague Chad Wingard and Richmond premiership player-turned Adelaide recruiter Shane Edwards.

Lee’s role is no longer an executive position at head office. Wingard recently joined the AFL as its first national Next Generation Academy manager.

Burgoyne, Port Adelaide’s Indigenous welfare manager, added: “There’s no representation from the clubs who have drafted the most Indigenous players over the past two decades and that’s Fremantle, Port Adelaide, and Hawthorn.”

The lack of consultation with the game’s key Indigenous voices in setting up the panel comes after this masthead reported that Paul Briggs, the long-time chairman of the AFL’s Indigenous Advisory Council, described the new head office plan to address the decline of First Nations footballers as “shallow and self-centred”.

Burgoyne, who served on the IAC, said he too had stepped off the council two years ago because he felt “disrespected” and believed it was “a box-ticking exercise”.

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