23 teams set for IC14, AFL 9s scrapped

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23 teams set for IC14, AFL 9s scrapped

Authored by: Aaron Richard
on Wednesday, February 26 2014 @ 01:51 am ACDT

Regards the IC being held in Europe or North America - I think the complicating factor with that is the Pacific, which the AFL obviously has a vested interest in developing as a player market.

If it was held in Europe, obviously you'd get more European sides (specifically looking at Germany, Iceland, Italy) taking part. But countries like the Solomons, Vanuatu, Tonga, Indonesia, Nauru and Timor-Leste (even though they won't be at IC14), would be pretty unlikely to make it.

Pakistan and/or India definitely wouldn't make it if were held outside Australia, as they have made (or will make) up a big section of their squads from students living in Australia.

So even with the loss of 3-4 European sides, the net number of sides competing is probably still going to be higher if held in Australia.

I would agree with everyone else here that 3 years is too small an interval... Should definitely go out to 4 (as was the original plan).

23 teams set for IC14, AFL 9s scrapped

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Wednesday, February 26 2014 @ 06:22 am ACDT

I'm honestly not sure why they are sticking with 3 years. I thought one argument made was not always clashing with Olympics or FIFA World Cup etc. But let's face it, the reality is that although the IC has grown impressively in terms of countries attending, it hasn't grown dramatically in coverage in Australia or anywhere else, so I don't see that it's competing for attention or sponsors.

I'm not sure if the delegates from the countries have ever strongly pushed for 4 years or whether it's a non-negotiable from the AFL?

Still, back to Germany, obviously this wouldn't affect them anyway. As to whether their league is kicking on and focussing on development, it seems they are making progress but not obviously faster than say France or a few other places.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

23 teams set for IC14, AFL 9s scrapped

Authored by: Harley Vague
on Wednesday, February 26 2014 @ 08:24 pm ACDT

Understandably ATM we are measuring the success of the IC by number of teams that attend (because we are yet to broach crowds and ratings) etc. With the current situation of high costs to attend I think we may have to be open to innovation. One way to reduce costs and to increase participation is to play local qualifiers. Obviously most top division countries are regular players but many smaller countries struggle to justify the cost/benefit.of travel but could participate locally. This could apply to Europe, SE Asia and Oceania but be of no betterment to places like Asia of Africa. The result could be less teams attending but many more teams participating. Maybe this qualifying style structure is not terribly applicable to the IC but it could be usefull for other competitons.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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