World Footy News

The European footy community is to host some of Australia's best young footballing talent next year, with the elite Australian Institute of Sport-Australian Football League Academy to tour.

In the past few years, the AIS-AFL squad have focussed on touring Ireland and South Africa, with a number of matches against the South African Lions.

The AIS-AFL squad will take on a European representative side, featuring local players from up to seventeen nations, in a match in London. They will also visit the brand new triple-level European Training Centre, which is due to open this December, in the Italian town of Gavirate in the province of Varese.

The tour will conclude with a visit to Gallipoli for ANZAC Day.

We'll have more information on the preparations of the European side in the near future, but in the meantime see AIS-AFL Academy to make European trip in 2011 for more details.

WFN has reported previously on footy in the Solomon Islands, where RAMSI Special Co-ordinator and former South Melbourne player, Graeme Wilson has taken charge of Solkick and footy in the Solomons - acting as Secretary of the Solomon Islands AFL Federation.

In October this year, Wilson announced that they hoped to send an Under 16 team to Tonga for the upcoming Oceania Under 16s tournament. The good news is that 24 lads are ready to head to Tonga and take up the challenge for the Solomon’s first representative footy team.

Rising West Coast Eagles star Nic Naitanui, 20, has today agreed to a new three-year contract extension, binding him to the club until the end of the 2014 season.

The emerging 201cm ruckman, one of the most exciting prospects in the AFL, had been touted as a possible target for the new Greater Western Sydney franchise, but he revealed today that he never intended leaving the club.

“I wasn’t going anywhere,” Naitanui said. “This is a young and exciting group, there is already a strong bond between everyone at the club and I want to be a part of that for the next five to 10 years.

The 2010 Coca-Cola AFLPNG Talent Camp was held over the weekend at the National Sports Institute in Goroka, Papua New Guinea.

85 kids from all over PNG, including the New Guinea Islands, the Highlands, Lae and Port Moresby gathered in the Eastern Highlands province for a weekend of gruelling physical testing.

The AFL has announced a restructure of Victorian football as part of building a stronger national organization designed to support and grow the game at all levels.

AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou said former Essendon chief executive Peter Jackson had been appointed executive chair of a new entity, AFL Victoria Ltd., to manage the AFL’s investment in the development of the game in Victoria.

Under the restructure, the new entity will become directly aligned with the AFL. Mr Demetriou said the restructure would allow the AFL to more effectively support the game in Victoria as it has with AFL Queensland and AFL NSW/ACT.

Swans defender Tadhg Kennelly has had knee surgery today. Kennelly twisted his knee in a training mishap in Ireland last week and immediately returned to Australia for assessment.

While many readers may find it unusual that an AFL player is doing this sort of unsupervised training - and in fact some players have contracts that forbid this sort of thing - it is quite common for Irish players to not only train while in Ireland but to compete in Gaelic football matches in the offseason.

Collingwood today officially listed Irishman Paul Cribbin of County Kildare with pick 81 in the Rookie Draft. Cribbin has been training with the club for some weeks after signing a two year contract with the 2010 Premiers earlier this year.

Despite rumors of the return of Cribbin's countryman Marty Clarke to Collingwood through the year this has not eventuated. But the club and Clarke have left the door open for it to possibly happen in the 2012 season.

The Sydney Swans have added to their band of foreign legion players, picking up South African-born Eugene Kruger in today’s AFL rookie draft.

Kruger, 19, has been training with the Swans and has been outstanding on the pre-season running track, blitzing the field in the 3km time trial two weeks ago. He lives in Sydney and has played Australian football seriously for less than two years, lining up for local side, East Coast Eagles.

The USAFL will be holding a training camp for the USA Revolution and USA Freedom teams in Austin, Texas the weekend of February 25-27.

The Revolution Coaches will be focusing on the preparation of players for the International Cup in Australia, in August 2011, and the camp will be used to finalize the squad for this tournament. Attendance at the camp is by invitation only. This camp is the culmination of a 2 year recruiting process implemented by Revolution Coach Matt Bishop and he is confident a very strong squad will be making the journey to Australia.

The NZ Hawks youth team has been named and will play against up to 7 countries from the Pacific region including an indigenous team from Australia, The Flying Boomerangs. The Kiwis will be looking to improve after last year's very raw squad finished 3rd, behind Nauru and surprise winners Tonga. Competition will be tough with the 2009 tournament favourite, Papua New Guinea, keen to play well after ultimately being unable to attend last time.

Once again talent scouts from the AFL clubs will be in attendance in search of potential International Scholarships from the participants aged between 14 to 17.

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.