THE AFL may be proudly promoting its first clash for premiership points in China with their 2017 Fixture announcement on Thursday.

But in his new book, Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou has slammed Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull for attempting to use AFL — rather than football — as a means of engaging with China, referring to Turnbull’s April 2016 visit, where he led 1,000 business leaders on what was reported as the largest-ever trade mission to the country.

“When it was announced by the AFL that it intended to host a match in China between Port Adelaide and Gold Coast Suns, the prime minister couldn’t help but clamber all over the possibiltieis, exalting the greatness of Australia’s native game,” Postecoglou says in his book Changing the Game.

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“If a prime minister, on behalf of a trade mission and business leaders, is going to impress the Chinese in the world of sport, surely he should use a sport common to both, like football, where Australia and China actually have relations and that the Chinese actually care about.”

Turnbull actively spruiked Australian Rules Football as the “most exciting” football code at the game’s launch in April.

Port Adelaide will play a game in China in 2017.Picture Sarah Reed Source: News Corp Australia

“AFL is the most exciting football code,” Turnbull said.

“An enormous field, extraordinary athleticism, it is the leaping, jumping, flying game, where the big men fly — as they say.

“Where possession is everything, possession is everything, it is a game that moves faster than any other. So exciting.”

But Postecoglou said there was one particular flaw to the prime minister’s promotion of AFL: at the time, Chinese president Xi Jinping was investing heavily in football.

Given China and Australia had faced off in an Asian Cup match in early 2015, Postecoglou said the Australian contingent missed an opportunity and should have captialised on China’s pre-existing love of the sport - summed up perfectly this week by the announcement of World Cup winning coach Marcello Lippi as China’s national team boss on a staggering $5m a year deal. That appointment has come after a year where China’s Super League has started to flex its financial might in the transfer market, taking Europe’s biggest leagues head on competing for high profile talent.

Tim Cahill scored against China PR in the 2015 Asian Cup match. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images) Source: Getty Images

“Neither the PM nor anyone in his office noticed that Chinese President Xi Jinping is actually a football fan,” Postecoglou said.

“That around the same time as the trade mission he was outlining his plans for football in China, plans that involve investing billions of dollars, hosting the FIFA World Cup, building the Chinese professional league, opening 22,000 football-specific high schools and working towards winning the FIFA World Cup in 2050.

“All this after Australia had hosted the Asian Cup only a year earlier, during which the Socceroos played China in the quarter-finals. As winners of the Asian Cup, it might have been prudent to celebrate this most unifying of Asian events.”

Ange Postecoglou’s book. Source: Supplied

With Tim Cahill leading a contingent of Socceroos plying their trade in the Chinese Super League at the time, Postecoglou suggested the star power of those players would have been far more likely to wow President Xi than their AFL counterparts.

“The problem is that our players are bigger stars in the eyes of China than they are in ours,” he wrote.

“With whom might Preisdent Xi have preferred a photo, Timmy Cahill or Gary Ablett Jr?”