Bachar Houli: Faith, Football and Family

Product Description


Bachar Houli is as accomplished an AFL footballer as they come. He’s been part of two Richmond Premiership sides, he was an All-Australian in 2019, and with over 200 games to his name he remains a key part of a champion team. Picked at number 42 in the 2006 National Draft by Essendon, Houli played 26 games for the Bombers before moving in 2011 to Tigerland, where rookie coach Damien Hardwick was assembling the team that six years later would achieve the seemingly impossible and claim Richmond’s 11th Premiership. Another flag followed two years later, with Houli close to best on ground in both deciders. Yet it’s as the AFL’s most prominent Muslim player that Houli is best known – and his strong Muslim values are at the heart of the man he is. Writing for the first time, Houli explores the experiences and beliefs that sparked his trailblazing success as a Muslim footballer, and that established him as a leading voice within the AFL community for inclusion, understanding and tolerance. Co-authored with acclaimed broadcaster and writer Waleed Aly, Bachar Houli: Faith, Football and Family tells the unique story of one of football’s most fascinating men.


About the Author


Waleed Aly (Author) Waleed Aly is one of Australia’s most respected and versatile media talents. He is a broadcaster, author, academic and musician. Waleed is co-host of network TEN’s
The Project, live to air weeknights. In 2016 Waleed won the Gold Logie Award for the Most Popular Australian TV Personality, Silver Logie Award for Best Presenter and delivered the 2016 Andrew Olle Media Lecture. Waleed picked up another Silver Logie for Best Presenter in 2017. Waleed has tackled comedy as both a writer and presenter for SBS’s
Salam Café, along with hard-hitting news as a host of ABC radio’s Mornings program in Melbourne. He has presented sporting analysis on ABC News 24’s
The Drum, and political analysis on
Q&A and
BBC World. In 2010 he hosted
The Late Session for SBS, a lively talk show set in a dinner party environment canvassing a wide range of contemporary topics. Through this as well as regular appearances on
Offsiders,
Meet The Press,
The 7.30 Report and
Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, Waleed has become widely recognised and trusted by audiences across Australia. In 2005, Waleed was made a White Ribbon Day Ambassador for the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and was named one of The Bulletin magazine’s ‘Smart 100’ in 2007. He was invited participant to the Prime Minister’s 2020 Summit in 2008 and in 2011 he was named Victoria’s Local Hero in the Australian of the Year Awards for his work in fostering cross cultural understanding in the community. When he’s not broadcasting or writing, Waleed is probably doing something musical. Waleed is the guitarist and main songwriter for Melbourne originals band Robot Child. He played the lead guitar in the world’s first ever theatrical production of Pink Floyd’s classic album,
The Wall with Nuworks Theatre in Melbourne, in the process helping to raise $60,000 to rebuild a girls’ school in Afghanistan that the Taliban had previously destroyed. He also played guitar on
Storm, a song he co-wrote live on air with Sony-signed Australian artist, Shelley Harland. Waleed is almost certainly the only terrorism expert in the world to have written a formal harmonic and structural analysis of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. He made his Melbourne International Comedy Festival debut in 2013 alongside Charlie Pickering
in ‘The World’s Problems Solved with Charlie Pickering and Waleed Aly’. Waleed was Radio National’s Drive show host from 2012 for three years, co-hosting
The Project on Friday nights during this period. Currently he presents
The Minefield on Radio National with ethicist Scott Stephens every Wednesday morning. Waleed is a lecturer in politics at Monash University, working in their Global Terrorism Research Centre.