Advocacy
Craig’s advocacy rests on one principle: human rights and international law belong to everyone, and must be applied to everyone. Each cause below is a place where that principle is tested.
Refugees and asylum
The refugee arrives with nothing but the fact of being human, and that is where every rights system is truly measured. Craig has stood beside people held on Manus Island and Nauru, and argues that Australia’s offshore system, found by the United Nations to breach the Convention Against Torture, must never be repeated or exported.
In October 2019, after #SaveHakeem, Craig publicly committed to helping every asylum seeker and refugee held by Australia on Manus Island and Nauru. He travelled with Amnesty International Australia to Port Moresby to meet men who had spent more than six years in offshore detention, and with Amnesty launched #GameOver.
More than 65,000 Australians joined the campaign, alongside sporting greats including Liz Ellis, Benny Elias, Paul Roos, Ian Chappell and Lisa Sthalekar, Socceroos captains Paul Wade, Frank Farina, Alex Tobin and Craig Moore, and artists including Jimmy Barnes, Bryan Brown and Anthony LaPaglia. Craig pressed the Government to accept New Zealand’s offer to resettle 150 people a year, and to free those brought to Australia for medical care under Medevac. The campaign helped free hundreds of refugees.
#SaveHakeem
When refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi was detained in Bangkok and faced return to Bahrain, Craig led a global campaign that united players, fans, governments and sporting bodies. It worked. Hakeem came home.
The young Pascoe Vale FC player was seized at Bangkok Airport in late 2018 and spent 77 days in custody. Craig travelled to Thailand several times, and to Geneva, Amsterdam and FIFA headquarters in Zurich, working with the Australian Government, FIFPRO, World Players United, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights.
The campaign reached 84 countries and more than 30 million people, with support from Gary Lineker, Giorgio Chiellini, Sam Kerr and many more. Hakeem landed in Melbourne on 12 February 2019 and later became an Australian citizen.
Craig co-authored the story of the campaign, Fighting for Hakeem, with Alexandra Engel-Mallon. It is also told in the documentary The Defenders.
Afghanistan
Half of Afghanistan’s population lives under a gender apartheid: no education beyond primary school, no freedom of movement, no public life. In 2021 Craig helped evacuate Afghan women footballers and young university students to Australia. He remains a mentor and “Aussie dad” to many of them, and continues to advocate for every Afghan girl still denied her future.
Their story is told in the documentary Die or Die Trying: Escaping the Taliban, made with the Addison Road Community Organisation. The film received the NSW Premier’s Multicultural Communication Award (Public Interest) in 2023.
Iran
For years Craig has championed the rights of Iranian women and female athletes. He has backed the campaign for Iranian women to be allowed into football stadiums, a right denied to them for decades, and pressed FIFA to use its power to end the ban. He has spoken out against the execution and persecution of prominent Iranian athletes, including champion wrestler Navid Afkari, executed in 2020 after taking part in protests, and called on sport’s governing bodies to defend the athletes who make their game.
When members of Iran’s women’s national team sought protection in Australia in 2026, Craig stood with them, called on the Australian Government to support them, and demanded that FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation put real protections in place, so no athlete is ever forced to choose between her career and her life.
The Rohingya
Craig has campaigned for years against the genocide of the Rohingya. More than a million survivors live in the camps of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, with food rations cut and children’s schooling suspended. Many have lived in the camps for more than 30 years.
In 2024 Craig returned to Cox’s Bazar with Amnesty International Australia, supported by UNHCR and Médecins Sans Frontières, and made the short film The Forgotten People. It calls for adequate funding for the camps, pressure on Myanmar to end atrocity crimes against the Rohingya, and safe resettlement for those most at risk. Craig also calls on Australia to join the international legal case on their behalf and to act on its duty to prevent genocide.
The Uyghurs
In Xinjiang, China is estimated to have detained more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, and the United Nations human rights office has found that its conduct may amount to crimes against humanity. Craig stands against the genocide of the Uyghur people and calls for the same standard of accountability applied everywhere else: independent investigation, an end to forced labour in global supply chains, including in sport, and no exemption for a permanent member of the Security Council whose veto shields it from the law.
Palestine
The International Court of Justice has found Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful and in breach of the prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid, and has ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza.
Craig’s position is simple: international law must apply to every party. Palestinians, like every people living under occupation, have the right to self-determination and to resist that occupation, and that resistance, like the conduct of every state and armed group, must abide by international law.
He calls for an end to genocide and apartheid, and for Australia to meet its legal obligations: end weapons component exports, support the international courts, and apply the same standard it applied to Russia. He has also called on FIFA to apply its own human rights statutes consistently.
Sudan
Sudan is one of the largest humanitarian crises on earth, with atrocities that a UN fact-finding mission says bear the hallmarks of genocide. Craig calls for accountability for those committing and arming the violence, for Australia to stop weapons exports to the United Arab Emirates, which is accused of arming the forces responsible, and for the world to see, and respond to, a crisis it has chosen to ignore.
Integrity and human rights in sport
Craig is a long-standing campaigner against corruption in FIFA and against sportswashing, the use of the game by rights-abusing states to buy legitimacy. He argues for a stronger voice for athletes and fans, strong and independent accountability, and an end to the hyper-commercialisation that puts profit before the people who love the game.
In 2017 FIFA wrote a commitment to human rights into its own statutes. Craig’s demand is that it be applied every time, as a condition for every host, owner, sponsor and tournament, not as a slogan.
Women and gender equality
As Chair of Professional Footballers Australia, Craig championed gender equality for the Matildas, led a governance review and opened Executive Committee seats to Australian female players. As an Ambassador for the Sydney Women’s Fund, he supports underprivileged women’s groups and the fight to end violence against women.
From Kabul to Tehran to Australia, he argues that women’s safety and equality are the measure of any society, and of any sport.
Anti-racism
One framework, for every community, no exceptions. Craig has championed anti-racism initiatives across local government, communities, education and sport. He argues that racism is too often used to redirect economic pain onto the vulnerable, and away from those who profit from division.
An independent Australia
Craig supports an Australian republic, an independent foreign policy, and a nation that values every human life equally, at home and abroad. He defends the right to peaceful protest and to speak against atrocity without fear.
Community
As Ambassador for the Addison Road Community Organisation in Marrickville, Craig supports food relief and community programs for people doing it tough in Sydney.