World Footy News

The Lliga de Futbol Australia de Catalunya kicked off its 2007 season on April 22nd with a match between the Barcelona Stars and Belfry Valls, Valls running out fairly comfortable winners. This was then followed on May 5th by a much closer encounter, with Valls hanging on for an 8-point win. The league has dropped to two teams for this year's season as Lleida and Tarragona have gone into recess until 2008, but on a positive note is looking forward to some international competition this year, including taking part in the EU Cup in Hamburg in September. The LFAC also recently relaunched its new website at lfac.cat.

The Catalan national team will compete at the EU Cup at Hamburg with the recognition of the association of Catalan national teams, as they did at the EU Cup in London in 2005. For the first time Spain will also be competing at the EU Cup, represented by the Madrid Bears as at the International Cup in 2005.

According to the LFAC website, this presents the possibility of the first-ever encounter between the Spain Bulls and Catalonia. The site also mentions here that Aussie Rules Europe originally sent an invitation in the hope that a combined team representing all of Spain (both Madrid and Catalonia) could attend, but that this offer was turned down by the LFAC.

Catalonia, a fiercely independent region with its own distinct language and culture, is mainly situated within modern Spain, where Catalan is one of the nation's four official languages and the province enjoys a degree of autonomy. The Catalan area also extends beyond the northern border into France, including the area around Perpignan, where a footy club under the name of the St Estève Saints was formed fairly recently.

Belfry Valls were to play a friendly against St Estève last July, but in a setback to developing footy ties in the region, the match was cancelled at the last moment due to the Saints' field being unavailable. LFAC founder Pere Moliner stated "it was a pity as we had the intention of inviting them to join the league for 2007 if everything had gone well".