Olympic gold medallist and Labor senator Nova Peris has emerged as a frontrunner for the AFL's top Indigenous job, a development that could affect the ALP's federal election campaign and fast-track the competition's push to promote Aboriginal Australians into more influential football roles.

Peris, whom former prime minister Julia Gillard described as a "captain's pick" when she was appointed to the Senate in 2013, is understood to have held talks in recent weeks with several key AFL executives after an informal discussion with league chief Gillon McLachlan this month at the game's Women's Industry function.

She is one of several high-profile candidates for the recently revised role vacated in February by Jason Mifsud, who now heads the state government's Aboriginal Victoria.

In what is shaping as a hotly contested new position, another strongly favoured contender is Justin Mohamed, the chief executive of Reconciliation Australia. Under the AFL's proposal, the role would focus entirely on Indigenous matters, having previously also involved multiculturalism – now being handled separately.