World Footy News

Today, 1st January 2015 the Adelaide Advertiser (page 65, Sport Section) published an article about the search for footy players in Europe extending beyond Ireland.
The Advertiser's distribution readership covers all of South Australia and beyond to Broken Hill in NSW. Following is that article:

THE AFL is set to cast their foreign draft net beyond Gaelic footballers to find new talent in local leagues playing the game elsewhere in Europe.

Four Irish rookies were signed up for the 2015 season by AFL clubs in Australia including Essendon, Geelong, Fremantle and West Coast.

But speaking following a combined draft weekend in Ireland, AFL Europe CEO Ben MacCormack said scouts were to look further afield.
He said clearly the talent pool was large in Ireland where Gaelic football skill set matched that of AFL but the athleticism and enthusiasm and passion for the game meant there was talent to be tapped further among AFL Europe’s 21-member nation league competition.

“We are going to expand our talent search and we are very aware there are some out there whether it's a six foot eight inch explosive Croatian athlete to a talented Danish former handballer or basketballer which has wet the appetite of scouts to see what’s out there and find out more,” he said.
“Talent wise we’ve thought from the start we can consolidate and learn from what we’ve done in Ireland then expand it into Europe. The talent in Ireland is well known but we’re seeing exceptional results in Europe that we need to look more closely at.”

MacCormack cited the case of 19-year-old Danish player Mikkel Kjoeg who was just 1cm short from making the all time Australian standing vertical jump record of 83cm. The Dane had been selected to take a year out in the Geelong College exchange program to develop his AFL skills.

The London-based CEO said AFL Europe was growing all the time with new clubs joining local competitions; AFL Poland has just started up and the Russian competition was expanding with St Petersburg making a team for the 2015 season.

Former Sydney Swan Tadhg Kennelly, who was part of the successful “Irish experiment” — which began in 1982 — was in Dublin on the weekend for the talent combine. He said the challenge was not just to find the skill but a player with mental fitness to stick it out in the professional league on the other side of the world in Australia.

He said there were a lot of top Irish players who could make it in AFL competition in Australia but many draft picks returned home to Ireland after less just a few months.
Originally published as AFL looks to Europe for fresh talent

Footnote:
Advertiser online article comes with several photographs. Wonder whether Ben Mac Cormack might have Josip Habljak in mind when the referring to an 6' 8'' Croatian athlete.