The AFL, together with the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters’ Council alongside Community Radio Station 3ZZZ will produce a series of Multicultural Football Shows and match broadcasts during the remainder of the 2017 Toyota AFL Premiership Season.
The Multicultural Football Show will be recorded in English and select match broadcasts will be available in the Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin and Spanish languages. The programs, set to engage eight multicultural commentators, will provide each commentator with training and the opportunity to commentate Australian Football live at the MCG and Etihad Stadium.
The weekly Multicultural Football Show will feature eight episodes and will be hosted by Harbir Singh Kang who is of Punjabi background, Salam Hasanein who is Palestinian and Gabriel D’Angelo who is of Spanish heritage. Reviewing and previewing each round of the AFL, the show will focus on news and programs relevant to multicultural communities, featuring interviews with Australia Post AFL Multicultural Player Ambassadors.
AFL General Manager Game Development Andrew Dillon said the AFL is proud to partner with the NEMBC and 3ZZZ to deliver the Multicultural Football Show:
“The AFL’s multicultural strategy has been developed through partnerships with ethnic communities and organisations such as the NEMBC who have become advocates of our game; ensuring it is the most inclusive sport in Australia.
“We are proud to have established a formal partnership with NEMBC to host a Multicultural Football Show that will be shared across all the partners of NEMBC in 2017.
“This show will give us the opportunity to celebrate the diverse cultures that make up our great game; highlighting the contribution multicultural communities have made to the sport’s history and welcoming new communities to embrace Australia’s game in the future.”
NEMBC Operations Officer Fiv Antoniou said: “We are proud to partner with the AFL to deliver the first Multicultural Football Show of its kind, engaging passionate multicultural supporters of AFL football and providing them with the opportunity to broadcast the game in different languages.”
“The AFL has for several years been investing in multicultural communities around the country and we are excited to play a role in growing the game. The multicultural community is a huge national sector and what better place to commence a regular multicultural AFL program than through the NEMBC, a national radio station network.
“In every state capital there is a large multilingual community radio station and there are hundreds of general community radio stations in cities and towns broadcasting multilingual and multicultural programs. Community radio forms a large part of the media landscape, with 57% of Australians tuning in to community radio at one time or other each month.”
A list of the in-language commentators:
ARABIC: Ahmed Osman, Salam Hasanein
HINDI: Harbir Singh Kang, Renu Tiwary
MANDARIN: Barney Xua, Agnes Lu
SPANISH: Maximo Perez-Torres, Vanessa Gatica
The schedule of broadcasts that the AFL has granted the Multicultural Footy Show the right to broadcast:
Pic from left to right: NEMBC’s Executive Officer: Russell Anderson. NEMBC Operations: Fiv Antoniou. AFL General Manager Game Development: Andrew Dillon. Multicultural podcast and broadcast presenters: Vanessa Gatica, Maximo Perez-Torres, Harbir Kang, Gabriel D’Angelo and Renu Tiwary