The Sydney Swans Fan Development team welcomed over 70 international students to last weekend’s Sydney Derby as part of the AFL’s Multicultural Round.

Students from the Sydney English Language Centre and the EF International Language School took part in an AFL master class run by the Swans, which included an explanation of the rules and the history of the game.

Fan Development executive Mick Martin said fan initiation was an important role for the Swans.

“What we do at every home game is that we have our fan initiation marquee where we set up outside the ground for new fans to the game, whether they are new to the AFL or new to the Swans they can come along,” he said.

Click on the video player above to watch Around the Ground, powered by Volkswagen, at Saturday night’s Fan Initiation marquee

“We’ve got ‘S-plates’ which have got some basic rules of the game, and what we are doing tonight for Multicultural Round is that we’ve got a bunch of international schools who have brought students from all over the world to their first AFL game.”

Students from Asia, Europe and even as far as South America took part in Saturday night’s fan initiation experience.

Martin said welcoming people of different backgrounds to the game in particular was of great importance to the Sydney Swans.

“I think AFL, the game that we love is a game that will go international and to have these guys here to have their first experience is really important,” he said.

“Sydney is obviously such a multicultural city so we really want to make sure we’re growing the game and having everyone come out to our great game.”

The Swans Fan Development team host fan initiation events at every Swans home game.

For more information or to get involved, click here.