World Footy News

The USAFL tonight announced that the 2017 National Championships will be held in San Diego, California.  This will be the first time since Las Vegas hosted the tournament in 2006 that the Championships will be held on the western side of the nation and the first time in California since 2000. 

As this is written there are some concerns for the venue of this year's tournament, Sarasota, Florida (October 14-16 at the Premier Sports Campus).  Hurricane Matthew is making it's way across the Caribbean Sea towards Florida and could possibly do some serious damage across the state and up the east coast if it lands there.  Fortunately the tournament is not this weekend, but there could be on-going issues into next week that may affect travel and the host facilities. 

In the meantime we hope that all our friends on the US East coast stay safe and dry.

The USAFL last weekend streamed the seedings of all the teams in the four men's divisions for the tournament.   

They are as follows

DIVISION 1
2 pools of 4 teams each.  Winner of each pool advances to Grand Final.

Seed	Pool A	Pool B
1	Austin Crows	New York Magpies
2	Los Angeles Dragons	Golden Gate Roos
3	Denver Bulldogs	Orange County Bombers
4	Quebec Saints	Dallas Magpies

DIVISION 2
2 pools of 4 teams each.  Winner of each pool advances to Grand Final.

Seed	Pool A	Pool B
1	Sacramento Suns	Calgary Kangaroos
2	Houston Lonestars	Boston Demons
3	Columbus Jackaroos	Chicago Swans
4	Baltimore-Washington Eagles	Minnesota Freeze

DIVISION 3
2 pools of 4 teams each.  Winner of each pool advances to Grand Final.

Seed	Pool A	Pool B
1	Portland Steelheads	North Carolina Tigers
2	Philadelphia/Balt-Wash*	Seattle Grizzlies
3	Ft. Lauderdale Fighting Squids	San Diego Lions
4	Austin Crows*	New York*/Boston*

*Denotes reserves squad

DIVISION 4
3 pools of 3 teams each.  Pool winners and best runner up advances to semifinal on Sunday.

Seed	Pool A	Pool B	Pool C
1	Tulsa Buffaloes	Denver Bulldogs*	Houston Lonestars*
2	Nashville/Indianapolis/Cleveland	Des Moines/Milwaukee/KC/LA*	Ohio Valley River Rats
3	Tampa Bay ARFC	Atlanta/Baton Rouge	Golden Gate*/Columbus*

*Denotes reserves squad

The women's divisions are yet to be confirmed but likely to be broken into two divisions.