Craig Foster says that football is the perfect metaphor for a just and humane world.

The former Australian soccer captain and human rights advocate says football represents a world view that sees everyone as essentially equal.

“There are rules in the game that apply to everyone no matter who they are or where they come from,” he says.

“I think you can see something similar to a human rights framework in the game of football. Here is the pitch and here are the regulations we have agreed to.

“And I think sport can be a powerful tool for us to promote respect and equity and it is powerful agent for social change,” he said.

Foster talks the talk but he also walks the walk.

Recently, he attended a multicultural football tournament in Mildura, 550 kilometres north west of Melbourne and a thousand kilometres from his home in Sydney.

Foster played in two matches – much to the delight and surprise of his teammates; he spoke at a dinner, posed for a hundred selfies and inspired a group of young players from a dozen different countries.

After retiring from the game in 2002, Foster has forged a career as an incisive and thoughtful commentator on the game.

He has also carved out a niche for himself as an advocate for human rights, and particularly refugee and asylum seeker rights.

“I’ve always had an interest in human rights and social justice has always been important to me,” Foster said.

“As a young player and an international I was involved in social programs with Barnardo’s, with the Big Issue and in domestic violence.

“With my profile I have been able to use sport to raise awareness about things like long-term unemployment and indigenous rights.

“It was a natural progression for me to learn more about organisations working with people at risk. And the more I came to know about these people in need of help, the more I realised there was much more I could do and that there was more to understand about the systemic issues at work.

“As my profile grew over the years it gave me more social capacity and it allowed me to be able to speak to different sections of society.

“And then studying law have me an understanding of the international human rights framework and its application. And I found that sport lends itself to this view of the world because its basic ideology is one of respect and equality.

“From a humanitarian perspective, sport – and especially football – places us in a global marketplace; it places us in a global human family.

“And I think football should naturally produce global citizens who can respect each other and it can help us to be able to understand and navigate our differences,” Foster said.

One of Foster’s recent projects is ‘Sport for Good’ a free online course produce for Torrens University which teaches techniques around the power of sport as a platform for change.  

The course explores the history of sports activism, the changing landscape and the global challenges of modern sport through interviews with athletes who are working for change.

“The course is designed to give anyone in sport all the tools and basic knowledge they need to be able to use the social power of sport for good,” Foster says.

“It helps administrators, CEOs, committee members or athletes understand how they can affect change inside and outside of sport.

“We use examples of where this has happened – examples like Colin Kaepernick, Adam Goodes, Cathy Freeman and Hakeem al-Araibi. Basically, it explores these what these people as well as the tools and campaigns for social change I’ve used over the years,” he said.

Foster famously became the face of the campaign to free Bahraini-Australian footballer Hakeem al-Araibi, who was granted protection as a political refugee in Australia in 2014 but was detained in Thailand in November 2018 while on his honeymoon because of an Interpol red notice issued by Bahrain.

Foster travelled to Switzerland to present a petition with more than 50,000 signatures demanding the release of al-Araibi speaking with FIFA General Secretary Fatma Samoura.

He also spent time in Thailand speaking to al-Araibi’s legal team and visited the footballer in prison.

After al-Araibi’s release, Foster said the fight had just begun, saying the incident had shone a light on abuses of athletes after the Bahraini uprising of 2011.

Foster has also been critical of Qatar’s winning bid for this year’s World Cup after revelations of abuses and deaths among migrant workers building the tournament’s stadia and infrastructure. Some reports says 6,500 migrant workers have died.

After some soul searching, he has decided he will be part of the SBS commentary team. But is not travelling to Qatar and will donate his fee for the tournament to the families of migrant workers killed in the construction.

“I don’t want to go to Qatar and spend my money. I don’t want to go to Qatar and take happy photos like David Beckham and say that everything is fine because it’s not fine. So I’ll be working on this World Cup from here in Australia,” Foster said.

He says he was “not prepared to profit from a World Cup that is built on the backs of dead migrant workers”.

“I do think though, that it’s important to be involved to raise these issues, and to ensure that the football and the human rights come together in this World Cup,” he said.

Foster is also supporting the #PayUpFIFA campaign, which is calling on the World Cup governing body to provide compensation to families of the migrant workers who had died.

“We can’t profit from this World Cup in good conscience without at least stepping forward and raising the issue of those families and doing something for them,” he said.

When it comes to migrants, Foster has also been critical of Australia’s offshore processing regime and its treatment of asylum seekers

“Australia needs to look at how we treat every human being that comes to these shores, irrespective of how they arrive… We are all equal, and should all be treated with equal dignity, care and respect,” he has said.

He echoed these sentiments at the tournament dinner in Mildura.

“Tournaments like these bring us together. What we see here is a true reflection of what Australia is,” Foster said.