A Pom friend of mine remarked on Facebook during the week: "This is probably going to sound bad to someone, but I find the concept of 'indigenous' teams slightly racist."

He was speaking, of course, apropos of the clash this weekend between the NRL All-Stars and the Indigenous All-Stars at Skilled Park on the Gold Coast, timed to coincide with the second anniversary of Kevin Rudd's apology to the stolen generations.

What followed was a good old ding-dong of a debate, something Facebook is occasionally good for, and nothing really was resolved. The opinions were divided fairly evenly.

What was most interesting, though, is that those who weren't born in Australia found it racist.

Those who had been born here and raised here didn't think there was much to be fussed about at all.

When the match was announced in November last year, Titans star Preston Campbell said: "I'm playing for my people, I'm playing for my family, I'm playing for my community, and what bigger passion can you get than that?"

I don't know. But my Pom mate demurred: "Makes no sense – we spend years educating ourselves that we're all equal, no matter our colour or creed, and then we come up with this nonsense and say, 'Let's play each other and see which is the dominant colour'. Surely the fact an indigenous player is already playing professional football for any club is a celebration of that fact? Isn't highlighting it with the creation of a team a little bit patronising?"

In my opinion, no.

What I think is missed by those who condemn such contests (there's an AFL one, too, with calls for an A-League version) as patronising racist gimmickry is the historical, economic and social context: Aboriginal Australians by and large have never got their due in society (the so-called "gap" is still criminally wide) and so achievement in sport typically has been a means to instil community pride and produce positive role models for young people who need inspiring.

Think Anthony and Tony Mundine, Cathy Freeman, Artie Beetson, Harry Williams, Michael O'Loughlin, Nicky Winmar, Mark Ella, Evonne Goolagong… the list goes on.

It's a failing of our society that sport has been one of the few areas where Aboriginal people are able to rise to the top, but that shouldn't exclude using sport as a vehicle to promote betterment for Aboriginal people in a wider sense.

Every player wearing that Indigenous jersey this weekend knows the social responsibility he's been entrusted with. They have good reason to feel proud and shouldn't feel they are being used as pawns in some cynically motivated racial experiment.

If England still had its own extant indigenous population, with their own history of invasion, abuse, neglect and marginalisation, maybe my Pom friend would see things another way.

Then again, maybe after Saturday's match he will.


:: For more Fink musings on the big issues in football, check out Half-time Orange on The World Game.