World Footy News

As leagues across Europe and the world respond to the threat of Coronavirus, AFL Ireland has just announced it's own measures. In a statement released today, AFL Ireland states:

"In light of recent events, AFL Ireland and AFL Ireland Women's will be following the Government's guidelines and suspending all activity at club, university and international level until March 29th at the earliest.

We will be taking an all island approach to protect all our members on the island of Ireland.

This includes all games, training sessions and scheduled events.

We will continue to follow the guidelines during this ever changing period and will assess the impact these measures have on our competitions and events.

We encourage all of our members to continue to follow the guidelines laid out by the health authorities." AFL Scotland have also released their response today.

"Like every sporting organisation we are keeping a very close eye on the almost daily developments in regards to the coronavirus. AFL Scotland and our member clubs will continue to follow official government advice. At the moment each individual club will decide if training goes ahead based on their own circumstances, but we would ask all players and staff to follow government guidance on how to protect themselves and others. The safety of everyone in our community is of great importance and anyone with any concerns should contact their club, the best advice continues to be to wash your hands thoroughly and regularly and to self isolate if you are feeling unwell in any way."

"Our SARFL season doesn’t begin until the 18th April and our SARFLW season on the 2nd May, by that time there will most likely be new guidance in place and we will work with our clubs to decide our next course of action as and when that new guidance is available."

"There are 2 tournaments taking place in Scotland this month and at this stage both are scheduled to go ahead."

"The West Lothian Eagles are hosting the Ashley Palmer Cup on Saturday 14th March in Linlithgow.

And

AFL Scotland are hosting the Haggis Cup at Peffermill Playing Fields in Edinburgh on Saturday 21st March."

"Participation in training and tournaments is entirely voluntary and we recognise everyone will have their own views on whether they wish to attend or not due to their own circumstances, we support individuals to make their own judgement calls.”

Ahead of these decisions, the Belfast Redback's hosted the Leprechaun Cup last weekend at the University of Ulster fields in Jordanstown. The visiting Amsterdam Devils won the men's draw on the day whilst the women's title was taken out by the joint West Lothian Eagles/Scottish Sirens team.