World Footy News

The AFL’s Professional Approach to Developing European Footy

After 21 years of Australian Football in Europe, now that the game has reached its traditional ‘majority’, the AFL has adopted a professional approach to conquering Europe. The formation of the European Australian Football Association in January 2010 has been followed by an AFL-supported appointment to the Association. Peter Romaniw (pictured) has been selected, and now commenced work, as European Regional Manager.

The AFL has now developed a resource-committed approach to game development of the Australian game in a continent which already has Australian football from Helsinki in the north to Madrid in the west, further south to Milan and to Prague in the east. No longer is Europe forgotten due to either traditional connections or exotic fantasies.

It is part of the world footy map along with the closer to "home" New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific, traditional Ireland and International Rules (since Harry Beitzel’s first tour in 1967), the big power of the USA, the big population of rising China, and exotic South Africa and our own exotic, the indigenous North. While three of those development regions featured on 60 Minutes’ September 2010 report on the internationalisation of the game, Europe is now ‘on the map’.

Kicking Goals On and Off the Field

It has been a big year in Australian Football in Europe with several major events as well as national championships and individual international matches. Big moments have included the European Championships in August, in which Ireland defeated Denmark in the gold medal game. This tournament, combining nationals only teams with 16 a side football is a big step forward. The second big event was early October’s Euro Cup in Milan in which the winner was Croatia defeating the rising Netherlands team. The Euro Cup also hosted Europe’s first international women’s match between Ireland and Italy.

On-field events have been paralleled by significant developments in infrastructure. The foundations for the future game development of Australian Football in Europe are being established.

Just after his arrival in Europe in the middle of the European summer, Peter Romaniw, the new AFL Regional Manager Europe, was interviewed for worldfootynews.com in a South Kensington café in London, where he discussed the AFL development plans for football in Europe. In his first couple of weeks up north, he had already umpired at the French Cup in Strasbourg and been to a Brit Cup match in Bristol, although he also had to return to Australia in August to finalise some of the paperwork.

Contexts: Game Development Acquires an International Focus

The larger context of the AFL approach to international Australian Football is itself central. The AFL conversion to international football began when it embraced the 2005 and 2008 International Cups, far more than it had embraced the earlier 2002 Cup which had brought itself to Melbourne. The CEAFL and EU Cups from 2003 to 2009 demonstrated that there was also a coming together of the European leagues which now range in place from the north of Scandinavia and beyond (Finland, Iceland) to the Mediterranean (Spain, Italy and Croatia).

The AFL’s formalisation of a European program began with the 2008 role of Gerard Murphy, of Leading Teams sports consultancy, as its liaison officer and consultant in Europe. It paralleled another initiative, the more recent move of its general manager of National and International Game Development, David Matthews to Sydney and the creation of an AFL International Development Manager, Tony Woods, in April this year.

Game Development itself was only energetically embraced in the 2000s. Despite the AFL being the successor of the historic Australian National Football Council and the newer Australian Football Foundation as the custodian of the game, game development was only elaborated as part of the AFL apparatus under the Wayne Jackson AFL administration in 1996. Then substantial resources were put into game development, from Auskick and juniors to local leagues in the south and the north, after the $700 million plus TV contract of the mid-2000s.

European Regional Manager Role

Many of the European developments will build on the pioneering work by grass roots Europeans, the several British leagues and by visiting Australians.

Peter Romaniw’s full-time work is as the European regional manager based in London. Peter Romaniw is a former club (Richmond) and AFL multicultural and community development officer. He also worked in community liaison in the office of Senator Rod Kemp, the former federal Minister for Sport. He also has interests beyond traditional Western Europe, having been a volunteer with the Ukrainian World Congress International Sports Council.* His full-time role, which commenced in the northern summer, is one of several roles, while Gerard Murphy was appointed by the European Australian Football Association as the inaugural Chairman of its Commission.

* The greatest Ukrainian footballer of all was Carlton’s high-flying Alex Jesaulenko, who was later admitted to the Ukrainian sports hall of fame. Others have included Alex Ischenko who played for North Melbourne.

As the new European regional manager, Peter Romaniw arrives with both a sports planning background, with Victoria University degrees in sports administration and in human movement management and a football community/football skills development background. Both are essential in building a game for the long-term, one which can deal with the ups and downs of the occasional, but inevitable, departures of leading administrators, coaches and umpires. Those transitions can include Australians whose time there, wherever it may be, has finished, or locals who need to get on with other matters, career, work, relationships and family, or who themselves relocate to another country or city. Although this can be an advantage; already, to European footy’s benefit, the Icelander and former star of the Danish Vikings, Pall Finnsson, has relocated to Paris, and is an on and off-field force in French footy as well as the Paris Cockerels, while, differently, Olivier Tresca, a pioneer of the recent revival of footy in Paris, is now in Glasgow.

The on-the-ground appointment of a regional manager and the promise of resources for football development were also paralleled by two related European developments. One was the successful Cups in Croatia and Milan. Unlike the International Cup which is restricted to nationals, passport holders, with no wandering expat Aussies joining the teams, the 9 a side Euro Cup allows some Aussies but still has restrictions on the number of local Australians who can play.

The second, the great administrative leap forward, followed from the discussions that were scheduled to take place in parallel with at the 2009 Euro Cup. Later, a meeting in Frankfurt, chaired by Gerard Murphy, established the European Australian Football Association; it was held, symbolically perhaps, just before Australia Day 2010.

Umpiring and Coaching In Demand

Peter Romaniw has undertaken coaching accreditation courses and has also worked with the AFL umpiring department. Both are important backgrounds as skill development and understanding the rules of the game – and their interpretations, e.g. holding the man/holding the ball, when is a mark a mark – are two of the greatest needs in evolving and growing European and other international leagues.

Respect for Local Hard Work

Talking to him in comfortable South Kensington, in an Italian coffee chain which promises better coffee than the traditional local norm, he emphasised the importance of respect for what local pioneers had achieved and their ongoing work especially when ‘everyone is a volunteer’. He sees it as important to ‘ensure support for those who’ve done it already’, with an ‘admirable passion’ for strengthening the game. It is good to come across someone who has a corporate role who emphasises the need to ‘show respect for what they have done’. In contrast to the ignorance and older negative views of some football traditionalists, he remarked that ‘they [the European pioneers] really love the game’, even though many of them had only learned it in recent years.

Long Term Strategies Important

At the same time, coming from a new breed of young sports management and AFL-style footy developers, he emphasised the need to ‘develop a long-term strategy’, to ensure continuing processes which will ensure continuity and lay the base for the future.

He is also conscious that ‘every country has its variations... the Brits with expats coming through, the Danes...who are well established... [and] the Italians, the newest competition. What is also interesting, he remarked, having umpired in the French Cup in June just after his arrival and having seen an English tournament a week later, ‘is the spirit in which game is played, they tackle and bump but they respect each other’, which many of us might contrast with some forms of the game at home. Many are still learning both the skills and the nuances of the rules, he observed. He had seen players thank the umpire for explaining to them a technicality, why a handpass was actually a throw (something I had also observed when explaining to a Finnish player that he could not just bounce the ball and play on when kicking out from after a point). Junior development is an important evolving stage, more advanced in some countries than others, he observed. It is however an important part of the long-term future.

While the position is based in London, which for many Australians (as well as many Englishmen) is more offshore, more splendid isolation than Europe, it makes sense. In terms of football skills a number of Australians with football experience live in or pass through London, as do many Europeans, and the city is one of the major hubs for cheap flights in Europe (e.g. Easyjet, Ryanair and beyond).

Challenges and Difficulties

Peter Romaniw’s job, working with the local football lovers and leagues, is that shared by many people around the world, and even in parts of Australia, to show that footy may not be the biggest game around the map, but it is actually ‘the best game’. While sometimes it sells itself, since it also faces as Mike Gouteff, of the Czech AFL, remarks in Prague, the ‘YouTube effect’, the view that it is just aggro due to clips of big hits and biffo, selling the game is not always easy. Even in the UK a prevalent image is of wild colonials playing a violent game with ‘no rules’, both the product of English prejudice and of the 1987 Battle of Britain between Carlton and North Melbourne at the Oval when biffo was the order of the day.

Resources, Co-ordination, Co-operation… Big Questions for the Future

It may be appropriate for an observer to comment on the next stages, one of developing new territories and consolidating the existing competitions which face generational change on and off the field. While none of the many people who have worked hard to develop Australian Football in Europe (or on any of the other continents) expect that ‘cargo’ will come in big planes, for there have been no cargo cults, the future may depend on the mix – local work, European leagues and regional competitions and AFL resources. Only when all three work together will the long-term future be secured.