Australia, play football or leave – Liberation

Opponents of Argentina in the round of 16, the “Socceroos” have long relied on a solid pool of players of immigrant origin, while the government’s draconian policy on the matter is debated in the country and beyond.

They hadn’t left the hens’ head since 2006. The Australian players will play their first round of 16 World Cup this Saturday (20:00), against Lionel Messi’s Argentina. The culmination of sixteen long years of trying to reach the knockout stage and three failures. A sensational return to activity, while the training of young talents stagnates, despite the democratization of sport in the country in recent years. Even despite a certain popularity rating, visible through popular videos of jubilation in the middle of the night in Melbourne, when the Socceroos qualified against Denmark. Australia owes its comeback in particular to its pool of young players of immigrant background, who make up a large part of the current squad. Of the 26 players away in Doha, more than half come from communities of all walks of life: Serbia, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Bosnia, New Zealand, Malta, Ireland, Nigeria, Lebanon, Afghanistan…

Failing to be the country’s premier sport, still largely relegated to rugby league and XV, cricket or Australian rules football, football remains hugely popular among immigrant populations. The reason is historical: for a long time, football has been a vector of social inclusion for people arriving on Australian soil. The history of the national team can almost be seen as a mirror of the country’s immigration. The selection workforce during the 1960s-1970s included first generation European migrants (England, Scotland, Germany, Greece, Hungary and the former Yugoslavia). During the 1974 World Cup, a minority of players on the pitch (barely a third) were born on the island continent.

This 2022 vintage has perhaps never been so multicultural. Some promising young players come from the most recent waves of migration, mainly from Africa: four players were born on the continent. Apart from Durban (South Africa) born defensive midfielder Keanu Baccus, three of them are refugees from the South Sudanese community.

Goal scorer in Peru’s play-off qualifying match, winger Awer Mabil was born in 1995 in the UN-controlled Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya after his family fled the war in Sudan. He lived there for his first 10 years, playing with his socks rolled up like a football, until his family was granted asylum in Australia. “During the journey my mother and her parents made to reach the camp, many people diedrecalled Awer Mabil in the Keeper. They were captured by rebels trying to flee. How they escaped, we could talk all night. It looks like something out of a movie, but it’s something they’ve actually experienced.”continues the one who will discover the Premier League in January with the Newcastle shirt.

Defender Thomas Deng’s parents also fled the conflict in Sudan. He too was born in Kenya in 1997, before emigrating to the mainland island in 2003. As for Garang Kuol, who became the youngest Australian player to step on the grass in a World Cup against France, he was born in 2004 in a refugee camp in Egypt, of South Sudanese parents who fled Darfur, before the family moved permanently to Australia when Kuol was just six years old.

Draconian migration policy

Today, that Australia is betting its football destiny on these tortuous youngsters, it seems totally at odds with the country’s immigration policy, which has greatly tightened over the past two decades. While people like Awer Mabil have been able to enter the country through official refugee claim programs, they are far from the majority. Many applications have been bogged down by significant bottlenecks since the 1990s.

Further irony: Australia was the first World Cup participant to denounce the fate of migrant workers in Qatar, in a video in which several of its executives show their support. At the same time, the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is subject to recurring criticism of its migration policy, which is deemed harsh and discriminatory. The imbroglio around the Novak Djokovic case in early January 2022, who had to wait in a detention center before knowing if he could take part in the Australian Open, had made it possible to highlight the precarious conditions of the people waiting at the gates. of the Australian territory. Immigration detention centers – especially the one on the island of Nauru – are regularly accused of human rights violations.

The High Commissioner for Refugees has repeatedly stated “concerned” from these allegations, emphasizing that he observed “gradual deterioration” the situation of refugees and asylum seekers on the island of Nauru during regular visits since 2012. Australia has until January 2023 to fulfill its obligations set by the United Nations in terms of welcoming refugees. There are no penalties for failing to meet this deadline, but the country could be placed on a list of non-compliant nations that raise significant human rights concerns. That would stain, even in Qatar.