Kyah Simon and Indigenous football in Australia

Kyah Simon was 26 years old and a star player for Australia when her mother first told her about her family history.

Simon learned about how when her grandmother was a child, she was torn away from her family and had to work as a maid for white people, how her mother grew up in great poverty and how her uncle was once beaten almost unconscious by a racist white man on the street. Furthermore, she heard how her paternal grandfather returned home from World War II traumatized, drank and beat her grandmother, how her aunt died of a drug overdose and how her father would get into boxing matches with his cousins so whites would throw them a few coins.

The first Indigenous Australian to score in a World Cup and reach 100 caps, Simon is one of the greatest players in Australian history. Today, she understands her mission much more clearly.

"My parents faced a lot of discrimination and racism, and my siblings and I have had our fair share, but we've never shied away from the fact of who we are and being proud of that," Simon told Australian public broadcaster ABC in an interview.

A year ago at the Olympics, the Australian national team, led by the now 31-year-old Simon, displayed the Aboriginal flag as their way of connecting to the Black Lives Matter movement.

It is stories like Simon's that Indigenous Football Week in Australia wants to make more visible.

Started in 2015, the week is organized by the John Moriarty Football Initiative (JMF), named after the man who was Australia's first Indigenous international in the 1960s. Karen Menzies became the first in the women's game much later, winning her first cap for "The Matildas" in 1983.

Great tradition and new stars

The tradition of football remains important in many communities. University of Newcastle researcher and professor John Maynard describes that a form of football was played among the Nyeri Nyeri Nation as early as the 19th century. Starting in the middle of the 20th century, Indigenous women would have played, taking the chance to escape from the brutality of everyday life.

In the 1980s, Tiwiwarrin (meaning fast and nimble), an all-Indigenous women's team that competed in the colors of the Aboriginal flag (black, yellow and red), was founded in Brisbane. Today, there is an increase in top players from the First Nations, especially in the women's game. These include Canberra United striker Allira Toby, Sydney goalkeeper Jada Whyman and forward Shadeene Evans, who grew up in the remote community of Borroloola and only learned about football through JMF.

Simon is clearly one of the biggest stars, along with her cousin Gema Simon and of course Lydia Williams, Australia's current No. 1 goalkeeper. Williams wrote a children's book in 2019 about an Indigenous girl who plays football.

Underrepresentation

Despite the arrival of these players, there's no hiding how underrepresented Indigenous people are in Australian football. Around 4% of the country's population, roughly 984,000 people, were considered Indigenous in 2022. Of the approximately one million Australians who play football, only 6,000 are First Nations people, the equivalent of 0.6%.

Recent events in other Australian sports show that while the voices of marginalized female athletes are growing louder, racism remains deeply rooted in society.

Indigenous netball player Donnell Wallam refused to wear the logo of mining company Hancock Prospecting on her jersey. Hancock has been criticized for exploiting Indigenous communities and the father of the company's executive director Gina Rinehart, who is one of the biggest investors in Australian sport, once suggested that Aboriginal Australians should be given water that would sterilize them in order to wipe them out.

Rinehart never apologized for her father's words, instead complaining that sport was being "used as a tool for social and political means." Wallam's teammates showed solidarity and a compromise was sought, but in the end, the company withdrew its $15 million sponsorship.

More participation

The seventh edition of the Indigenous Football Week aims to make long-term changes to structures. Alongside tournaments and community programs, the IFA (Indigenous Football Australia) council, which has an Indigenous majority membership and gender parity, is looking to make a difference. Australian defender Gema Simon is a founding member.

Kyah Simon is a member of the National Indigenous Advisory group, which was founded a year ago to ensure more Aboriginal Australians and Indigenous people from the Torres Strait Islands play professional football and that their culture becomes more visible.

Small victories have already been made, with host cities of the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand being dual-named. The opening game is being played in Auckland/Tamaki Makaurau and the final will be played in Sydney/Gadigal.

This article was translated from German.