World Footy News

The Australian Football League Germany will return to a six team competition in 2011, with the return of the Hamburg Dockers to the main draw.

A two division structure was implemented in 2009, to help Stuttgart ease into the league, allow Berlin a season to rebuild, and give the reserve teams from power clubs Rheinland and Munich somewhere to play. This hasn't been repeated since, with clubs instead starting to move towards the "metro league" model of concentrating on 9-a-side local footy between the national league fixtures.

Germany's first 9-a-side metro league was founded by the Munich Roos last year, with the squad divided into three teams and over 50 players playing a match in the Bayernliga over the course of the 2010 season. This year, the Rheinland Lions and Berlin Crocodiles are looking at starting their own metro competitions.

David Mudge from the Roos says "the Bayernliga was a huge success last year, generating a pile of new recruits to the sport. We thought about expanding to four teams but in the end will keep it to the established three, with the exception that if Nürnberg get a team together, or even half a dozen guys, they have a standing invitation to participate as the fourth team."

While the title suggests a story about expats, the story in the video below focuses as much on Americans playing the game in the US and the AFL's desire to recruit American athletes to the AFL. Featuring interviews with Dave Matthews, Tony Woods, Robert Dipierdomenico, Jon Loring, Cameron Pinnock and Ojas Desai among others with footage of USAFL matches.

The AFL Britain have a new committee coordinating the regional English clubs north of London, with Karl Haigh from the Huddersfield Rams recently appointed president of the newly-formed AFL Britain North.

This committee includes all clubs from both the Central & North West and North East leagues, after the 2010 season saw the North East league struggle for numbers and come close to collapsing. New secretary of the AFL Britain North is Great Britain Bulldogs and England Dragonslayers rep Alistair Dellooze.

2011 will be a big year for English footy, with not only preparations for the Bulldogs' International Cup campaign, but also the European Legion vs AFL/AIS match in London, and the first London vs Country match scheduled to be held in Worksop.

LEFT: The Huddersfield Rams in 2010

Two IC11 matches will be staged as curtain raiser to AFL matches.

As per previous International Cups, the Grand Final will be played at the MCG, on Saturday the 27th of August prior to the Western Bulldogs v Hawthorn match.

There will also be a match before the Sydney v St Kilda game on Sunday the 21st of August at ANZ Stadium, Sydney - the two competing teams will be assigned once the final draw is done. It's likely to feature two of the top sides to showcase the increasing standard of international Aussie Rules.

The Australian Football League has also scheduled a lunch for the captains of the competing nations to be hosted by AFL Chairman Mike Fitzpatrick and AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou. The lunch will be held in Melbourne on Thursday the 25th of August, 2011.

In a Grand Final re-match from last season, the perennial Auckland AFL champions, University Blues, squared off against last year’s opponent, the Waitakere Magpies. Despite many years in the AAFL competition Waitakere had yet to win a flag but with the Club supplying a large contingent to the Senior NZ Hawks in recent years it has only been a matter of time.

These were 2010’s top two teams. One win each during this season’s regular rounds, plus a better for and against percentage, gave Waitakere top spot on the ladder and bragging rights over Uni entering the finals. However when both teams met again in the semi finals the Blues won very well and deservedly went straight through to the grand final, the Magpies had to pick themselves up to play against North Shore in the preliminary final in a week. A great win over North Shores Tigers saw the Waitakere Magpies through to another grand final against the foe.

The AFL today announced the creation of a state-league based knockout competition from 2011 onwards -- the FOXTEL Cup -- which will showcase the quality of state league football across the country.

AFL General Manager National and International Development David Matthews said the AFL had now concluded all arrangements for the new competition, in partnership with FOX SPORTS, which will bring 16 teams from the various state leagues across the country to play in a unique knockout competition which will be televised exclusively by FOX SPORTS and supported by naming rights sponsor FOXTEL.

RICHMOND coach Damien ‘Dimma’ Hardwick looked at his playing list last week as he decided who would play for the Tiges at Alice Springs against the Indigenous All Stars (later cancelled due to cyclone Yasi), and there was one player he really wanted to let loose.

As recently covered on WFN, two of PNG’s young champs are international rookie listed by the Tigers, and have been training at Punt Road. Gideon Simon and Nathan Malbak, a pair of 16-year-olds, were with the Tigers for just a week. So impressive had Simon been that Hardwick felt he was ready to mix it with some of the league's best.

Read Eye of the Tiger on PNG for more.

Of the potential new sides at the 2011 International Cup, the newest to footy in general are the Swiss, with the newly-formed AFL Switzerland working hard to find enough sponsorship to make it to the tournament.

A few previous unsuccessful attempts to start teams in Lucerne and Geneva aside, footy has only been played in Switzerland since 2010, when the club in Lugano was created to compete in the inaugural AFL Italia premiership season. Team Switzerland, drawn from the Lugano squad, made its debut at the 2010 Euro Cup.

Switzerland's second club, to be based in the country's largest city Zurich, will hold its first training session at the end of February under the leadership of Jono Newman. Newman spoke to WFN about the national team's chances Down Under in August.

LEFT: Switzerland at the 2010 Euro Cup in Parabiago, Italy. Photo courtesy of Daniela Scalia.

The AFL Europe this week announced that the 2011 9-a-side Euro Cup has been awarded to the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

This will be the first time the cup has been held in Ireland, and the Australian Rules Football League of Ireland believe it will serve as something of a preview to the next full-field European Championships, to be held in Dublin in 2013.

The ARFLI, although a powerhouse of European footy, are relative newcomers to the Euro Cup, not sending an official side until 2010. Prior to this, the Irish Exiles, drawn from Irishmen playing in other leagues around Europe, competed at the 2009 tournament.

Formerly known as the EU Cup, the Euro Cup is the biggest annual event on the European footy calendar, and is the main opportunity to get a large section of the community together.

Readers can contact eurocup@afleurope.org for more details.

33 men's and women's teams have been nominated for the 2011 Australian Football International Cup, to be staged in Sydney and Melbourne in August.

The long list of possible newcomers in the men's competition is Indonesia, Italy, France, Vanuatu, Iceland, Fiji, East Timor, Croatia, Switzerland and depending on definition, Tonga, which competed in the multi-cultural section in 2008. At this stage all previous competing nations have nominated, except Spain (2005).

For the first time there will be a women's tournament, possibly featuring Ireland, PNG, USA, Italy, Canada and a combined Multicultural & Indigenous team.

Read on for the full men's list.

AFL Europe has announced that the European squad to take on the AIS-AFL Academy team in London during Easter on April 23rd will be known as the European Legion.

The title results from a poll conducted on their website, narrowly beating the Titans and Stars.

The elite young academy players will also visit Italy and Turkey during their tour. See AIS-AFL Academy to tour Europe in 2011 for more details.

The European Legion will be composed mainly of U-21 Players from the various European Leagues with a limited number of U-23 players to add senior experience. The team will be coached by former Melbourne Player and AFL Europe Commissioner Glenn Lovett. For those interested in having players considered for selection or for players interested in finding out the selection criteria you can e-mail team.manager@afleurope.org.

Over the last 25 years former AFL Commissioner Colin Carter has been one of the influential people at AFL HQ pushing for game development and an international presence (see Carter returns to Geelong). After leaving the Commission he returned to Geelong's board in 2008 and has now taken over from Frank Costa as the Cats' President.

It will be interesting to see if Carter will combine his position and his enthusiasm for international footy to ensure Geelong gets behind the game's spread. International Australian football is already known at Geelong, such as through the goodwill of player James Bartel and the company of outgoing President Frank Costa has been a great supporter of football in South Africa through sponsorship of FootyWILD.