World Footy News

The Asociación Argentina de Fútbol Australiano has organised footy on-and-off since 1997, with at one stage four 7-a-side senior teams playing in the Buenos Aires area, as well as clinics for juniors.

The AAFAu is part of CODA sports, a group promoting alternative sports such as Australian rules, Rugby League, Lacrosse, Gaelic football and many more in Argentina. Their old website is still operational, but hadn't been updated since 2004. We recently heard news of a new site, with the following encouraging message (in Spanish) posted in June '07:

Australian Football is reborn in Argentina - at the hands of CODASPORTS an era of rebirth is commencing. After the brief heyday from 2001 to 2004, the renewed interest of many athletes in Argentina has led to the organization of a new event in August, where fans of this great sport will meet to outline a future major league. With 60 registered players, we are ready for our annual tournament 2007.

We haven't heard how the 2007 tournament went (or if it got off the ground), but readers may have seen the comments left here saying a set of tests between Argentina and Chile will be held in 2008 - Chile having also seen attempts to start a team in Santiago a few years back, before disappearing off the radar.

The Catalan league at one stage also had a large Brazilian contingent, and was planning a match between Catalonia and the "Brazil Anacondas". Though the match was dropped from the schedule due to other tournaments and matches getting in the way, the interest may still be floating around.

Exciting times, let's hope footy can lay some serious foundations in South America.