Aussie Rules was first played in Lebanon around 2003 and 2004 following an attempt to introduce the sport into that country by a member of the Melbourne Lebanese community, Hashem Ouaida.
Hashem returned to Melbourne in 2004 following one year of hard work bringing the Australian native code to his ancestral homeland of Lebanon.
Back in 1953, Ali Ouaida arrived as a new migrant in Melbourne. He had not long been in the country before he chanced upon a Carlton home game at Princes Park and was hooked - determining that he wanted to take the game to the world. The Ouaida family have since been heavily involved with Aussie Rules in the Melbourne Lebanese community and Hashem credits Ali with the initial idea of taking the game back to Lebanon.
The development of Aussie Rules in Lebanon was not easy, and Ouaida had his work cut out for him. "Lebanon's a tiny country, smaller than Tasmania, and facilities are hard to come by. Luckily we found a large soccer ground with an interested manager and were able set up three clubs".
The financial situation in Lebanon did not help either. Social sport isn't much of an option - even taking a few hours each week to train and a few hours on a weekend afternoon to play can mean missing more work than a lot of Lebanese can afford. "So, we've had to come up with incentives.
"One of our biggest problems is that many people in Lebanon confuse Aussie Rules with Rugby League. The Lebanese national rugby league team was created a couple of years ago by a group of guys from Sydney with Lebanese passports - and still people recognise them as 'those guys from Australia'. When you meet people and try to get them interested in Aussie Rules, it's difficult if they say 'that Australian game? Sorry, saw it and didn't like it' and you have to spend hours explaining to people that it isn't the same thing".
The Tripoli based competition has since gone into recess and there is no Australian rules currently played in Lebanon.
