The Chinese are now on the AFL Club Radar

Has there ever been as much talk of AFL Club poaching players from other countries as there is at the moment? First there was the big hoo ha about how the AFL caused the Gaelic Football Association to turn pro because the lure of becoming an AFL Footballer is becoming increasingly popular, recently the talk of how South Africa will become the next big recruiting ground for AFL Clubs. And now the Melbourne Football Club are dipping their toes in the Chinese market. It’s almost becoming a competition between clubs to see who can break into a different country first.

In this latest experiment there are 2 young chinese boys Zhao Yonggen, 22, and Zhao Wei, 21 that have been brought over by Melbourne, Chris Connolly in particular had a big influence here as he noticed them on a trip to China last year, and according to Connolly, will be “trailblazers” in the relationship between the two countries. One is a small, athletic martial arts whiz studying kung fu at the elite Beijing Sports University.The other is a former amateur soccer goalkeeper, a tall and strongly-built teenager hailing from Tianjin Provence, south east of the capital.

They trained with the Demons at the Junction Oval on Monday night and are going to accompany the club to Canberra on their community camp and will will return to Melbourne in August and September as co-captains of the first Chinese team to compete in the AFL International Cup. I am sure that in time we will see players from China grace the hallowed turf of the MCG.

Let the competitions begin……..