World Footy News

Brian Clarke of the International Australian Football Council (disputed title) has released preliminary details of the second annual Multicultural Cup.

The tournament will be held in Melbourne on Sunday 20th March 2005. From a cultural point of view, Clarke sees two main purposes for the event:

1. to celebrate Melbourne's ethnic diversity and harmony, and
2. use the sport of Australian football, as Australia's only indigenous sport, to break down cultural and ethnic barriers.

In a purely football sense, Clarke's organisation aims to stimulate wider interest in international football within the Australian football and ethnic communities, both the public and media. It also develops contacts between Australian players and their ethnic roots, and this has been used to gather support for seeding the game in the country from which their families came.

In 2004 the player eligibility criteria was that a player was either born in the country or had a parent or grandparent born in the country for which he played. The tournament was held on Harmony Day and was supported by the Victorian Government and Football Victoria. The eight teams were Australia (an Aboriginal team), Israel, Lebanon, Croatia, Samoa, Tonga, Vietnam and the United Nations (a team of asylum seekers from nine different countries). Israel defeated Samoa in the grand final and were presented with the winning cup by AFL legend Ron Barassi. The event attracted wide media coverage as a human interest piece.

The confirmed teams for 2005 are:

1.	Croatia
2.	Israel
3.	Lebanon
4.	Australia
5.	Tonga
6.	Africa
7.	Turkey

It is hoped that an Asian-Australian side will fill the available eighth spot, although there is a suggestion of inviting an Indian team (one of the great quests has been to get this massive country involved with footy). It's also hoped that at some stage an event can be organised involving Melbourne's large Greek and Italian communities. There have been many great AFL/VFL players who were first or second generation Greek or Italian Australian, but Australian Rules has yet to move into those two countries, despite footy's expansion in western Europe (with teams in most nations from Ireland in the west to Germany in the east).

More information about the 2004 Multicultural Cup can be found on the disputed IAFC website.


Pictured are the players from Croatia and Australia (represented by local Aboriginal players).