World Footy News

The Toulouse Hawks get some great exposure on French TV show Avant Match in September 2011, French National team representative Emilien Martinez is interviewed.

The Melbourne Football Club are continuing to talk up their commitment to China, both as a training venue and as a land of commercial opportunities.  Amongst that are community programs and developing the game there.

It's early days yet, but it's pleasing that the Demons are still very much interested in pursuing relationships in China.  Hopefully some continuity can be established in centres such as Beijing and Tianjin (site of the first dedicated footy field in China).

Read more at China: Enter the Dragon (part one), China: I want to take you higher (part two) and China:Growing the game (part three).

A couple of videos today. The first taken on the team bus shortly after arriving in Australia collecting Dragus' thoughts on his team's journey and the second video showing footage from IC11 and USAFL Nationals while Dragus is interviewed on AFL Grand Final day on SEN radio in Melbourne.

The USAFL club Minnesota Freeze have put out a recruitment video (below) ahead of their upcoming 2012 footy campaign.

Our old friend and International Cup icon, Mtutu from South Africa features in today's video which looks at the South African team during IC11.

One of the highlights for the attendees at IC11 was the group songs of the Tongan team, often heard from their changerooms before and after their matches, here is a closer look (and listen).

Along with Samoa, the other main absentee from the 2011 AFL Oceania Youth Cup tournament was the Solomon Sharks, who had debuted in 2010 to the delight of many.  As it turned out this year, the will was there to attend, but, the finances is another issue entirely.  The Solomons were able though to leverage off neighbours PNG and sent 2 players plus a team manager along with the main PNG squad.

 Ed Burton is the AFL development officer in the Solomons, and he recently prepared a 2011 year in review, noting that it was written/published on the AFL Solomons facebook page during the recent Youth Cup.

Merry Christmas to all our international footy news followers out there - and as kids across the world are hopefully getting a footy in their stocking, our gift to you today is this video from 1979 - "Up there Cazaly."

As the 4th AFL International Cup slips away to now being several months ago we thought it time to chat to the AFL International Development Manager Tony Woods about how he thought the tournament played out, ranging from questions on media, the women's division and staging it across two cities, to his own personal highlights of the experience.

WFN:  Overall I assume you were pretty happy with IC11.  A record 18 men's teams including 3 new ones (Tonga, Fiji and France) and only 3 countries that have attended in the past were not there (Samoa, Finland and Spain), which given the status of international footy is a very good return rate.  And of course the inaugural Women's Division with 4 nations and the Australian indigenous and multicultural (AIM) team.  Particularly pleasing must've been having all the committed nations turn up... no late withdrawals or no shows in 2011.