World Footy News

Two young South African footballers and an aspiring coach will come to Australia to hone their skills in AFL as part of the Geminder footyWILD Future Stars awards. The awards have been funded by the South African Honorary Consul in Victoria and will provide for two young players to fly to Australia to train as well as also spend time in an Australian school. A young coach will also be flown to Australia to further develop coaching tuition skills to be able to guide the very popular game in South Africa.

Mr Geminder said "These awards will provide talented young South Africans with intensive AFL training, match practice, schooling and an idea of what can be achieved if they work and study hard. It is a great opportunity for me to team with the AFL and make a real difference in South Africa; football is uniquely Australian, uniquely Melbourne. It is a perfect fit for me as Honorary Consul for South Africa in Victoria, with football very close to my heart, to support these kids, and further develop alliances between Australia and South Africa".

Collingwood and Essendon captains Nick Maxwell and Jobe Watson are among the 88 AFL footballers playing on Anzac Day who have signed personal and heartfelt messages of support on their guernseys for the more than three thousand Australian Defence Force personnel serving on 13 overseas operations and in support of Australia’s Border Protection.

The gesture is part of the Anzac Day Message to the Troops service, which is hoping to generate an unprecedented 10,000 messages of support for Australian troops. Victoria Cross recipient and Young Australian of the Year, Trooper Mark Donaldson VC said that troops overseas will receive a real boost after reading messages of support from Aussies back home.

“AFL football has become a great Anzac Day tradition and the Message to the Troops campaign is an ideal platform for AFL fans to show their respect and pay tribute to the many service men and women who are currently serving overseas.

We don't normally have commentary on Australia's National Rugby League (NRL), but current events are worth a mention. Despite the rising presence of a third code, soccer, the NRL is still clearly the AFL's biggest rival in terms of sponsorship dollars, media coverage and television ratings.

So it came as quite a shock to the sporting landscape today as the NRL announced its Victorian beach head, the Melbourne Storm, had been caught cheating the salary cap and had been penalised in an unprecedented way. Let me emphasise, this is Rugby League, not Australian (Rules) Football. For the Storm having been found to have systematically rorted the system for 5 years, the NRL has:

• stripped them of the 2007 and 2009 premiership titles
• stripped them of the 2006, 2007 and 2008 minor premierships
• wiped their 2010 premiership points
• banned them from earning any points this season
• fined them $500,000 and demanded they repay $1.1 million in prize money

The ramifications are enormous. The premierships will now be officially considered not awarded in 2007 and 2009. In an AFL context, it would be like Geelong being stripped of their titles from the past 3 years. Or if Sydney or Brisbane, AFL footholds in traditionally less strong Aussie Rules markets, were stripped of their titles and consigned to almost certainly spend time at the bottom of the ladder. Questions as yet unanswered:

The Fremantle Dockers have added a new partner club in Europe, with an agreement between the Dockers and the AFL Italia's Genova Football Club.

Mr Marco Mari (pictured at left with Fremantle FC COO Mr Gary Walton) from the Italian Chamber of Commerce Perth accepted on behalf of the Genova Dockers the Club Jumpers and other items being donated by Fremantle.

The partnership between the Fremantle Dockers and the AFL Italia Genova Football Club, now the Genova Dockers, is the first official AFL partnership to be established in Italy, with further partnerships between AFL and Italian clubs being negotiated.

Australian football's international growth has been most impressive over the past decade, aided by several threads such as the internet, television coverage, the growing Aussie Diaspora, and increasing enthusiasm from the AFL.

Of course there are always challenges along the way. The more common ones include finding ovals to play on, explaining to locals that it isn't Rugby Union, Rugby League or soccer and then convincing them to play, and travelling long distances to find opposing teams.

But recently two more unusual roadblocks have popped up - one very human and the other very much Nature.

In China, AFL Development Officer Andrew Sawitsch has been tasked with getting Auskick-style clinics running in Shanghai, and has had some recent success in five schools already. However his efforts were for a time curtailed by Chinese customs officials who were obviously suspicious of this new game and impounded 500 footballs, Auskick backpacks and hats. Fortunately the items were set free, but not before a month had passed.

An even bigger headache goes by the name of Eyjafjallajökull. On April 17th Great Britain was due to play Denmark in Farum, Copenhagen. As always it was a big effort to arrange a large travelling squad from across the Kingdom to travel and play a full scale international. But as the weekend drew near it became obvious they had an insurmountable problem - Iceland's erupting volcano was shutting down airports across northern and western Europe. Ultimately there was no choice - the match was cancelled. Hopefully the situation will be all clear in August when nations converge on Denmark and Sweden for the inaugural European Championships.

USFootyNews.com is counting down the 2010 Preseason Top 10. At Number 9 is the San Diego Lions.

2009 was certainly not the best season in the Lions' history. They finished under 500 (to non-Americans that's a win-loss ratio under 50%) after a disappointing Nationals campaign. However, it is not always about the Ws. According to Lions Head Coach Simon Schenk, "As is the case in footy, the barometer for success is not always wins and losses. Last year was a very rewarding season at the Lions. For all our games about 80% of our players were Americans, and in one of our 4 quarter games we fielded an entirely American side. In most of our games 15-16 out the 18 on the field were Americans. This is a great testament to the club in their efforts to not rely on Australians, and to really foster the American influence. Our board is also comprised entirely of Americans. So great stuff."

Photo: The Lions in the Yellow and Maroon take on arch rivals the OC Bombers.

Nic Naitanui from the West Coast Eagles is the NAB AFL Rising Star Nominee for Round Four. The exciting ruckman was a standout for the Eagles as the team scored its first victory for the 2010 season over Essendon at Subiaco Oval on Friday night.

Dominating the ruck with Dean Cox – a player he once idolised as a junior - Nic had 17 hitouts and gathered 13 disposals, 10 of which were contested and five tackles. His ability to clear the ball from ruck stoppages was a highlight with a game high equalling seven clearances.

The milestone for Naitanui will be keenly followed by those in his family's homeland of Fiji and no doubt by many immigrant Australians who dream of making their mark in Australian football. Nic is a raging favourite to take out the Rising Star award for the entire 2010 season following his outstanding form in the season so far.

Indonesia may next year become the fourth Asian nation to appear at the International Cup, with hopes that the vibrant league composed entirely of local Indonesians in the Jakarta area could provide the necessary recruits to send a team downunder.

Dan Delaney from the AFL Indonesia says development of Australian rules in Indonesia has focussed on lower socio-economic areas, and the organisation would therefore have to find the funding to pay for all the squad's costs.

This would make the project a costly affair, but with a number of funding avenues being examined, the support of expat-based footy clubs such as the Jakarta Bintangs and some assistance from Indonesian international students in Melbourne through the Indo Footy Stars, Delaney believes the project is both achievable and also worthwhile from sporting and social development perspectives.

World Footy News this week spoke with Alex Benjamin the creator and host of the Nashville Kangaroos ARFC Webcast channel on Justin.TV website. Alex’s trailblazing coverage of the USAFL and the AFL from an American standpoint is approaching its second anniversary on the channel this weekend.

How did your channel and show start?

In my fifth season as being a goal umpire for not only the team, but for the USAFL (US Footy), I felt that the sport was not getting the recognition that it deserved and also being a die-hard supporter of the team, I thought of branching out from doing the goal umpire duties to another venue, thus the channel.

As for the show itself, that came out of invention after the 2009 Nationals in Mason, OH, when my good friend, US Nationals Umpire Secretary Lisa Albergo (spoke about it) and I thought “Wouldn't it be nice to do a show with AFL and USFooty?” So, we took the initiative and began USFooty/AFL Weekly.

Following the creation of the Beijing AFL in 2009, the Shanghai Tigers kicked off China's second domestic Australian rules football competition on March 27th, with the North Shanghai Crows, West Shanghai Dockers and Shanghai Eagles clashing in a four-match afternoon of footy at the Shanghai Rugby Football Club.

Players from Australia, China, Ireland, US, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea pulled on the boots for the three teams, with the Eagles defeating both the other sides to sit on top of the ladder after round one.

The AFL's China Development Manager Andrew Sawitsch is now based in Shanghai, and has been working to introduce a modified version of Auskick into the city's schools. There are also plans to start senior football at the Shanghai Sports University, players from which could form the nucleus of the Chinese team at next year's International Cup.

With the announcement of an AFL exhibition match between the Melbourne Demons and Brisbane Lions to be played in Shanghai's Jiangwan Stadium in October 2010, there has never been a more exciting time for the Australian game in China.

After many years of development in South Africa, Australian football there has produced its first international scholarship player, Bayanda Sobetwa, and today he is due to touch down in Sydney. Sobetwa, from Khayelitsha Township (south east of Cape Town), will play with Greater Western Sydney in Victoria's TAC Cup Under 18 competition (given dispensation since he is 19). GWS will be the 18th AFL club, entering the big time in 2012, one year after the Gold Coast.

As part of his scholarship with Team GWS, Sobetwa will also undertake an AFL SportsReady Traineeship which will combine study and work in multicultural development in Western Sydney.

Team GWS High Performance Manager Alan McConnell and some of Bayanda Sobetwa's new team-mates are expected to meet him at the airport to welcome the South African to Australia.

On the recently-released list of nations who've expressed an interest in attending the 2011 International Cup were a number of European newcomers, who've come through the ranks of tournaments such as the EU Cup and are mostly in the process of setting up their domestic leagues.

The exception to that was Portugal, where footy has not yet been played on an organised level beyond the occasional social kick-to-kick. Portuguese local David Valente is hoping to change all that, with a continuing search for players and supporters to kick off footy in the country, the immediate goal of making it to the 2010 EU Cup, and maybe even the ambitious task of having a full squad ready for next year's International Cup.