With the AFL International Cup round the corner again, it is time to get the Indian team together to tour Australia in August this year. The exciting part about this years’ Indian team is that the team will be represented by players from all the seven states of India that has been playing Footy over the last few years and there will be a great diversity of culture and skills available this time round, as a reward for the development work for the sport in India, led by its voluntary leaders.

The team was also selected by a committee led by the AFL legend Kevin Sheedy, when he toured Kolkata during the ‘ARFAI National Champs 2017’, where the best players from all the states gathered to stand a chance to get selected for the dream Indian team. The committee also included AFL Goulburn Murray CEO Martin Gleeson.

The selection process followed the Indian sporting structure of players having to go through their respective state tournaments (where organised) and then participating at the National Championship West Bengal earlier this year. However a few additional names were added to the pool of shortlisted pool of players for the national team keeping in mind their effort to develop the sport in their respective states – the ultimate goal of ARFAI, who for prior approved reasons were not able to participate at the National Championship.

The shortlisted team below will travel to Kolkata for the first ever ‘National Camp’ of Footy in India in July and also represent India in the first ever international Footy matches to be played in India against the Australian AFL Masters team travelling over to Kolkata. With each shortlisted player going through a final screening process during these matches, the final list of players travelling over from India will be declared post the India Vs Australia matches in West Bengal.

The boys from India will be joined in by 10-12 Indian origin players based in Australia. These players would have to meet the eligibility criteria of the AFL International Cup and would also go through a trial procedure hosted by the Essendon Football Club in Melbourne.

The shortlisted Indian team for the national camp in Kolkata is –

Many congratulations to those who got selected.

n.b. This is not the final team that will travel to Australia.