AFL Asia Footy Participation Grows Across The Continent

None of us would deny that AFL is Australia’s signature game, but as shown in the AFL’s 2018 International Participation Figures it’s increasingly becoming many Asian residents’ game – Alongside other regions of the world of course! The countless member clubs across Asia work tirelessly to introduce and develop our great game and it’s outstanding to see all this work driving such measurable outcomes!

Confirmed in the report is the fact that Asia is certainly one of the international hot-spots of our great game’s growth. A very pleasing 56.9% increase in participation from 2017 to 2018 across Asia (excluding PNG) and an astounding 70,719 active participants in PNG demonstrate the sports increasing Asian popularity. In case you missed it the PNG Maruks showed a glimpse of the countries depth bulldozing the Division 2 competitors at the Asian Champs, the team’s second only ever trip to AFL Asia’s big dance. Several Division 1 team players with plenty of high level competition exposure are sweating on the much anticipated stepping up of the PNG boys to the top flight at the AFL Asia 2019 Asian Championships in Thailand later this year!

In more great news, AFLW numbers are a significant percentage of participation in AFL across the globe, forming 44% of all participants. After a few huge years of groundbreaking development leading to the first ever AFL Asia AFLW Asian Championships, we expect to see increased growth in this area in the coming years as more clubs join the fold and the early movers in this space establish their women’s footy programs.

AFL Asia would like to credit and thank our amazing volunteer networks driving our Auskick, Local Development, Women’s AFL and Clubs to ever greater heights. This collective energy hasn’t appeared overnight, but it’s great that we’re now able to see tangible results and no doubt bigger and better things are just around the corner!