THE AFL has drafted in more multicultural ambassadors to promote Australian football, as the fight against rival codes to secure young talent intensifies.
David Zaharakis, Paul Puopolo, Nick Malceski and James Aish have signed on as ambassadors, with 12 players now selling the game to multicultural communities in official roles.
Zaharakis, who drives the Zaharakis Multicultural Academy in northern Melbourne, said it was important for the game's future to find young players in new communities who may otherwise be drawn to soccer or basketball.
"It's always a big issue that you've got to compete against other codes," Zaharakis said at the launch of the 2015 Multicultural Program on Thursday.
"Whenever I was out there on a Wednesday night at the squad training, the kids were always talking about soccer training the next night or the night before and how much they loved soccer.
"So it's massive, we've got to get AFL imprinted on those kids from an early age and just promote the game to them.
"Once they did come down to training they had a good time, but in the back of their minds was soccer the next night."
Zaharakis travelled to India last year to run football clinics with teammates and explore the country, and he was thrilled to see kids wearing Richmond, Greater Western Sydney and Essendon jumpers.
Closer to home, he said there were regions of Australia with untapped talent and youngsters who could change the game with their unique attributes if they made it to the AFL.
"In my squad out in the northern region, there's one kid named Daniel, he's a Sudanese kid about 16 years old," Zaharakis said.
"The ability he has as an athlete I've never seen before as a 16-year-old.
"He's a pure athlete and he loves basketball, so I was trying to introduce him to the game of football.
"If you can pluck one out of a program of 30 kids that you put time and effort into and just to try and fast-track them into AFL, you achieve a massive goal by doing that."
Star West Coast ruckman Nic Naitanui, who was born in Sydney to Fijian parents, has become the unofficial leader of the Multicultural Ambassador program.
He said football had a big role to play in healing cultural tension following recent incidents in Sydney and Paris.
"I think at this particular time it couldn't be better fitting and more needed in our community," the 24-year-old said.
"You just look at what's happened in previous weeks in Sydney; I liked the sentiment behind the 'I'll ride with you' [campaign] that happened.
"I didn't know too much about the Islamic community until I became part of the (Multicultural) Program and spent time with Bachar (Houli).
"Integration, social inclusion and getting everyone in the community aware of what everyone is about and what their beliefs are … there's no better way to bring it all together than footy."
The four new ambassadors are joined by Houli, Jobe Watson, Alipate Carlile, Stephen Coniglio, Jimmy Toumpas, Lin Jong and Patrick Karnezis in heading up the AFL program.
Multicultural players make up 15 per cent of the AFL player list in 2015.
Multicultural ambassadors Bachar Houli of the Tigers, Stephen Coniglio of the Giants, Paul Puopolo of the Hawks, Alipate Carlile of the Power, David Zaharakis of the Bombers, Nic Naitanui of the Eagles, James Aish of the Lions, Patrick Karnezis of the Magpies and Jobe Watson of the Bombers
