World Footy News

Catalonia's oldest footy club, Belfry Valls, is coming to Madrid on May 7th for a three-way tournament versus the Spanish capital's Madrid Bears and Móstoles Kangaroos clubs.

The event will mark the first occasion that a Catalan team has come to Madrid for a challenge match, and the first time that the Madrileños and Catalans have met outside the EU Cup since the Madrid Bears visited Barcelona back in 2003.

The players from the Bears and Kangaroos came together once again to form the Spain Bulls last month for a friendly match against reigning AFL London premiers the Wandsworth Demons. Whilst the Bulls went down to the English power club by 17 points, visiting former Sydney Swans star Brett Kirk was impressed with their tenacity, even pulling on a Spanish jumper for the first half of the match, and writing about the experience here on his blog, Captain Kirk's odyssey.

Prior to this, Kirk had also stopped by Barcelona, taking part in a match with the Lliga de Futbol Australià de Catalunya.

Daniel Ribas from the Madrid Bears says that the number of people playing footy with the Bears and Kangaroos fluctuates, but there are currently around 25-30 regulars in the city, including 5 or 6 Australians. "We want to promote this game and we will try to create new teams in Madrid in order to play a regular league, but it's not easy. We have played a game between Kangaroos and Bears already this year and we will play the tournament against the Catalans in May. We will play another game between Kangaroos and Bears before summer and probably another one to prepare the EU Cup in October."

"There are some guys interested in footy in other cities around Spain but, as far as I know, there's nothing about new teams. It's very hard to create a team here in Spain because we play in rugby fields and there are not many of them," Ribas says.

Besides the Madrid region, there is a long-running (by European standards) footy presence over in Catalonia, where the LFAC has been organising a league for almost 10 years. The LFAC has to date included clubs from the towns of Valls, Barcelona, Lleida and Tarragona, with Belfry Valls and the Barcelona-based Cornellà Bocs being the best-established. Clubs from Andorra and Perpignan, situated in the Catalan-speaking areas outside Spain, have also taken part in the league in past seasons.

On a national level, the Spain Bulls (based on the Madrid clubs) and Catalonia have so far always competed separately at tournaments such as the EU Cup. The Spain Bulls made an appearance at the 2005 International Cup, their squad drawn from the Madrid Bears and from Spaniards resident in Australia. However, since then the Bulls have not appeared in a full-field test against another national team. Ribas says there is still a desire to bring the Bulls to the International Cup, but that a lack of funds has made it impossible to date.

"We wanted to participate in the IC2011 but we couldn't find a sponsor. We sent a lot of letters to Spanish companies based in Australia, but they said that they couldn't help us. It's a pity, because the previous experience back in 2005 was really good and we also did well in the last Euro Cup. But money is the problem, we have to pay for everything ourselves, we have neither sponsors nor governmental support. It's very hard to find companies interested in Aussie Rules here in Spain."

A possibility that might make it feasible for the Bulls to make a return to the IC is for the Madrileños and Catalans to combine for the tournament, something which Ribas says is a possibility in future.

The Catalans are known for their independent spirit, with a unique language and culture and a strong sense of Catalan identity separate from Spain. As a Catalan living and playing footy in Madrid, Daniel Ribas has a first-hand understanding of this. "About the Catalan issue, it's really complicated. I'm Catalan and I live and play in Madrid, so I know what is all about! If the Bulls didn't have enough players I think it could be possible that some Catalans would join the Bulls (for the IC), but this would not be a merger of the teams," Ribas says.

The Madrid Bears have a new website under construction (currently only in Spanish) which can be visited here.

The following video shows some Catalan footy action from Captain Kirk's Odyssey, with Brett Kirk kicking the footy with the LFAC.