World Footy News

At this time of year, Aussie Rules clubs the world over are getting back into off-season training. Major AFL Clubs take the opportunity to use this time to go abroad and hone themselves in different environments, Collingwood go to Colorado to work at altitude, this year North Melbourne went to the colder climate of Utah and Richmond are currently in New Zealand working on fitness and team building via some extreme sports.

This weekend’s weather in Scotland afforded the Glasgow Sharks the chance to train in some unusual conditions as well. With at least 4 inches of Snow covering the Sharks regular training venue at Glasgow Green, this Sunday’s session was less ball work and more snowball work!!

After years of debate as to whether winning the FIFA soccer World Cup would damage Australian football in Australia, diverting funding, attention and prestige, the issue has been instantly rendered null and void until at least 2026 (or longer if the bidding rules remain the same). FIFA delegates gathered in Zurich to cast their votes for 2018 and 2022 and the winners were Russia and Qatar. Neither bid was widely considered kindly, although Qatar was a favourite amongst some betting agencies, but at the end of the day the voting is not necessarily about which bid is best for the sport, rather it is about convincing a small group of generally elderly men who possibly have a diverse set of motivations.

It will be interesting to see if the anti-AFL recriminations begin, with the AFL blamed for delays in securing stadia agreements, and also whether there is a knee-jerk government reaction declaring that Australia will immediately bid again for 2026. With the giant China looming, if they wish to host in 2026 then that could block out Australia for the next 30 years, depending on the ever changing FIFA rules. As pointed out to this author in comments below, current rules prevent the same region hosting in the next 2 periods (I knew that) and Qatar is in the Asian confederation (I didn't know that). So perhaps 2034 is the earliest, and if China got that, then 2046.

Perhaps Australian football would have managed to showcase Aussie Rules to the world during a hosted soccer World Cup, but rather than an opportunity lost one can't help but to think that a far greater risk to the sport has been averted. Let's hope the recriminations are not too strong and for our part, those that were not keen on Australia hosting soccer's biggest event need to moderate our relief, being sensitive to the many Australians who had their heart set on a different outcome.

The AFL has confirmed the dates and locations for the 2011 International Cup.

We previously reported that Melbourne and Sydney were likely, and Queensland venues were also a chance, though less likely. The AFL have now stated that Melbourne and Sydney are locked in, but there will be no Queensland matches.

IC11 Competition Manager Josh Vanderloo stated in a letter to competing nations that:

"After considering requests from participating countries who nominated along with the recently released 2011 AFL fixture, we have made some changes to the scheduling of the 2011 International Cup.

We are excited to confirm the tournament will be played in both Sydney and Melbourne from Friday August 12 through to Saturday August 27, 2011.

We are committed to building on IC08 and through some enhancements to the tournament designed to reflect our expanding international vision, we believe we can deliver a better overall experience for all participating nations.

To date, the response from the International football community has been outstanding with an estimated 24 countries likely to take part in this celebration of our great game. In addition, we can also confirm that IC11 will include a female division for the first time".

On Saturday November 20th, the Toulouse Crocodiles hosted four other teams from around Spain and France for the 2010 Mediterranean Cup.

The tournament saw the debut of the Marseille Dockers, who clashed with Toulouse, the Perpignan Tigers, the Bordeaux Bombers and Spanish side the Madrid Bears.

The sides met each other once each over the course of an intense day's play, with the home town Crocs finishing undefeated. Second place went to the Bordeaux Bombers, with the Madrid Bears taking out third.

Marseille achieved a win over Perpignan, finishing with a 1-3 record from their first-ever outing.

For more information on footy in France, see FootballAustralien.com.

The USAFL today announced on http://www.usafl.com that Leigh Barnes, former Executive Board Member and long time USAFL player, umpire, coach and administrator as the new national women's team coach who will be the coach of the Freedom for the women's division of the 2011 Internantional Cup in Australia.

The statement reads as follows “We are extremely pleased to have Barnesy on-board as the Freedom’s Head Coach, he brings with him many years of playing and coaching experience and a good nature that will enable him to bond well from day one with the team”, says Rich Mann, USAFL President.

AFL chief Andrew Demetriou has confirmed that the League Commission is seriously investigating playing AFL regular season matches outside Australia for the first time.

The announcement was made at the AFL industry conference held on the Gold Coast in mid-November.

Cities mentioned by Mr Demetriou as potential hosts were Mumbai, Los Angeles and Shanghai, with mention also made of plans by Melbourne FC to repeat their Shanghai exhibition match experiment after the 2011 AFL season.

For more on this story, see AFL flags playing premiership matches overseas on afl.com.au or AFL wants to go global from Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper.

Since we released our statistically based World Rankings, applying from 8th August 2010, scheduled internationals due to be added were the senior Oceania Cup series, which unfortunately fell through. It was replaced with the Pacific Cup, a set of 3 matches between New Zealand and Tonga. Those games were 18-a-side, with 6 interchange, 20 minute quarters.

We've updated our rankings. However, since NZ is highly ranked and Tonga is new with a low starting rank, their points separation means NZ had nothing to gain and Tonga lost nothing by going down in the matches. So the only change to our rankings is that Tonga now have 3 eligible matches on the board, with 8 required to be fully ranked.

With the European summer well and truly behind us, WFN takes a look at who took out the silverware in the domestic leagues across Europe.

In our first installment, we'll look at the AFL London, the leagues around regional England, Scotland and Wales.

Australian sports news and opinion website The Roar today ran a story profiling Sam Stranks, an Adelaide native who received Oxford University's prestigious Rhodes Scholarship and has now become the Uni's Aussie Rules captain.

The article describes Stranks' background in the SANFL, as well as the growing collegiate footy scene in England, where Chichester and Birmingham have recently joined Oxford and Cambridge to make a university Aussie Rules season a reality.

The full article can be read at Sam Stranks Oxford University Aussie Rules Captain.

As we approach the month of December, for many of us, we’re sorting out our Christmas presents and wondering if Christmas cards are either still the done thing, or even whether we’ve left it all a bit late. For the good folk of the Pacific AFL community, final preparations are being made for the Under 16s Oceania Cup to be held in Tonga across December 14-20. And with that, the “Fiji Power” squad has been finalised.

The entire Hawks playing squad and coaches will touch down in Christchurch, New Zealand this Thursday, before making their way to the Mount Cook vicinity, one of the Country’s most picturesque and elevated training locations. The high altitude adventure training camp will see the Hawks in NZ for five days.

The players will be put through high-intensity physical activity, including mountain bike riding, high-altitude running and hiking and white water rafting. The players will also focus on team building activities.

This coming Sunday, the Tokyo Goannas will contest the 2010 Japan AFL Grand Final against the newest club in Japanese football, the Nagoya Redbacks. It is the Redbacks' first Grand Final appearance in just their second JAFL season.

Read on for a match preview, courtesy of Nagoya's Ashley James.