World Footy News

The AFL Japan Cup 2013 is set to be held on October 5, Saturday at "Seimei No Mori Resort" in Chiba, Japan.

The event will be contested by 6 teams including international visitors the Box Hill North Football Club. The other 5 teams include an all local Japanese team, an all expatriate team, and a Japanese-Australian combined team.

The one day tournament will have 9-a-side games, structured in 2 divisions, 2 semi-finals, and a grand final. Leading Goal Kicker, Player of the Tournament, Best on Ground of Grand Final, and other awards are to be presented.

The AFL today announced the names of the players eligible for selection in the Indigenous Australian Rules team which will play in the 2013 International Rules Series in Ireland.

STATEMENT FROM AFL CHAIRMAN MIKE FITZPATRICK

ESSENDON FC HEARING - 27 AUGUST 2013

I want to start by addressing all Australian football supporters.

The AFL Commission shares your anger and frustration that the 2013 season has too often been dominated by headlines that we would rather not see – and hoped we would never see associated with our sport.

The issues involved in the Essendon Football Club’s supplements program are deeply disturbing. The investigation undertaken over the past six months and the actions we have taken today reflect this gravity.

Sunday the 25th August saw the perfect window of good weather for the WA Women’s Football League Grand finals to be held. For the first time a youth girls league moved into the season proper providing a complete pathway from Auskick, Youth Girl’s league, Reserves and Women’s League.

The WAFL has worked closely with the WAWFL to produce a vibrant league that has performed strongly at all representative levels. The WAWFL also has nine regions arranged aligned closely to those of the WAFL.

In the second of our series of articles looking at the preparation and prospects of the various nations competing at this year’s Axios Euro Cup in Bordeaux, we look at the story of the Iceland Ravens. Solvi Fannar, General Manager of AFL Iceland, gives us his insights.

The Journey:

“In September 2012 [we] went with the rest of the boys in the national team to Edinburgh for the Euro Cup. “As for the team we will almost certainly have for this year’s Euro Cup, we will also have a couple of the girls join us, so there will likely be some Icelandic players in the Crusaders squad.”

The red dust of the Australian outback is the best in the world. Or the worst, depending on your point of view and your direct association with it. But that dust doesn’t dull the love of footy in Lajamanu. In fact, if anything, it just brings out the best in the local footballers as they run, kick, bounce and mark with the same athleticism you would find anywhere else.

For Lajamanu’s AFLNT Regional Development Manager, Ty Ebdon, his journey to this remote outback Northern Territory community has been a life change. The town is nestled on the northern fringes of the Tanami Desert, not far from the border with Western Australia. It is almost 900 kilometres south of Darwin, and 557 kilometres south-west of Katherine. Ty had never experienced this level of isolation before.

In the first of a series of articles looking at the preparation and prospects of the various nations competing at this year’s Axios Euro Cup in Bordeaux, we look at the story of the Croatian Knights. Josip Kravar, president of the Association of Australian Football of Croatia (AAF), gives us his insights.

 The Journey:

“Players trained with their clubs until the beginning of June when they joined the Knights squad and 4 times a week preparation began. [Our] main focus for this year was development for a 16 per side team at the European Championship and we are satisfied with our work with young talent and our result at the European Championship. We were placed 11th on the world footy ranking, and what I can say is that we will justify that in future competitions.”

“[There were some] new players that emerged from our collaboration with Zagreb Sports Faculty and Zagreb University. [Along with] a couple of veterans and other well-known names in AFL Europe, this will be team that will go only for a gold medal at this Euro Cup.”

Toronto based Northern Lights player Renee Tong has found a novel way to help raise so money to compete in next year’s International Cup: A contest where the winner is awarded $10,000 towards their athletic dream.

The competition is being run by Canadian wellbeing and supplements company Genuine Health. Each entrant writes about their athletic dream and the $10,000 prize is awarded to the athlete with the highest number of votes. The competition ends on August 31st.

Renee hopes that with help from the international football community she will win the competition and be able to travel to Australia to compete in the International Cup. As well as travel and accommodation costs for Australia, also hopes to use the money to travel across Canada to national competitions so she can gain more experience and become a more competitive player. The prize money will also cover the training, nutrition and physio programme she has set to lead up to IC14.

If you would like to help Tong achieve her dream of playing for her country, please click here to vote for her and read her story here.

More information about Tong’s aspirations and her Australian Football journey so far can be found in this article in local newspaper Inside Toronto.

The 14th annual Asian Championships have taken place in Thailand, with the Hong Kong Dragons taking out the coveted title for the second consecutive year. The Dragons went through undefeated and beat the Philippines Eagles in the final 4.5 (29) to 2.3 (15) at Royal Polo and Equestrian Grounds outside of Pattaya.

This is the Dragons’ fifth title since the tournament began in 2000. The team is now tied with the Singapore Wombats for the record of most Championships.

The first Asian Championships to be held under the AFL Asia banner proved to be a success with a record 13 teams from across the continent competing for the prize, up from nine teams the previous year.

Other than the Dragons, Eagles and the hosting Thailand Tigers, the competing teams were the Singapore Wombats, Macau Lightning, China Reds, Jakarta Bintangs, Bali Geckos, Cambodia Eagles, Laos Elephants, Malaysian Warriors, Vietnam Swans and Japan Goannas.

This year’s tournament shows how the game continues to grow in the region, not only with the record number of participating clubs, but with the strength from within these clubs too. The Philippines Eagles finished at the bottom of the Championship table last year with no wins, but improved to go through almost undefeated this year only to fall at the last hurdle.

The tournament has become the pinnacle of Australian Rules football in Asia. With new structural organisation, an ever increasing number of teams and the depth within those teams, it will continue to grow as the pinnacle of Asian footy.

Luke Gosling, one of the key foundation members of the footy scene in East Timor, is standing as the Labor Party candidate for the seat of Solomon in the 2013 Australian federal election.

Gosling spent a number of years in East Timor with the Australian Defence Force peacekeeping and development mission, after the nation achieved independence in 2002. During his time in the country he was one of a group of Australians who helped introduce the sport of Australian rules, and corresponded with WFN in articles such as Timor-Leste Crocs enter Asian Footy.

Members of the Asian footy scene may remember him through his involvement in the early years of the Timor-Leste Crocodiles national side.

He now resides in Darwin with his family. The electoral division of Solomon takes in the Darwin metropolitan area, as well as some surrounding districts. It was won at the last federal election in 2010 by the Country Liberal Party, who hold the seat with a margin of 1.75%.

The Masala FC has completed its first season in the VAFA's Club XVIII Division, and although the side only managed two wins for the year, the beginnings of the club's mission of exposing new players from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds has been deemed a success thus far.

Since securing a home base in the suburb of Noble Park in Melbourne's south east and playing its first matches earlier this year, Masala has grown to a playing list of almost 50 players, with most of those being new to the code.

The 2013 squad's largest contingent consisted of players of Indian and Sri Lankan backgrounds, but the club also included a number of Anglo-Australians and other players born in (or with both parents born in) Fiji, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Italy, Serbia, UAE, Kuwait, Afghanistan, NZ, Italy and Estonia.

This broad range of cultures and backgrounds reflects the club's name 'Masala', a word used in numerous languages of India to mean a blend of spices, which in turn is represented by the star anise in the club's logo.