World Footy News

This season saw the first edition of a league dedicated solely to central England, with the rebirth in footy in the cities of Liverpool and Birmingham, and the creation of the first-ever sides from Leeds and Huddersfield.

These four sides, freshly-formed and built almost entirely from local recruits who have learnt the game from scratch, recently completed the inaugural ARUK Central home and away season, with the Huddersfield Rams finishing clear top of the table.

Fighting for the right to face the Rams in the Grand Final on August 16th, the Birmingham Bears and Liverpool Eagles will this weekend face off.

The Liverpool and Birmingham Australian Rules clubs took some time out from preparing for the preliminary to tell WFN a bit more about their respective first-up seasons.

After the significant success of the AFL Oceania match at the Pacific Islands Leaders' Forum in Cairns it is unfortunate to have to report on a setbackl for the game's growth. Two of Australian football's great recent success stories have been the return to football by Nauru and the surge of talented Papua New Guineans playing in Australian leagues. Sadly both endeavours have suffered major setbacks in 2009 as Australia's visa system has changed to restrict visitors working.

The change has completely stopped the program that saw many Nauruans play in country Victoria in 2008, which was a key to their dramatic improvement and helped them re-start the game at home. For AFLPNG the setback saw some of their most talented young players sent back to Papua New Guinea, potentially hurting their chances of being drafted.

The AFL, AFL Oceania and the Australian Government have been in discussions to find a way to reduce the undoubted damage these changes have caused, and the Cairns match shows there is plenty of goodwill towards Australia's indigenous game, but to the best of our knowledge an ideal solution has yet to be found.

On Saturday 1st August, in the tiny village of Mitteleschenbach in the heart of Franconia (northern Bavaria) Germany, the German Black Eagles and the Czech Lions took the field. Playing according to EU Cup 9-a-side rules, both teams fought it out under the blazing sun – perfect conditions for relaxing at the beach, but quite extreme when playing Aussie Rules – for 4 x 20 minute quarters.

Thanks to German national team coach Luke McBride for this report.

Press release from the AFL.

ESPN and the Australian Football League (AFL) have reached a multiyear rights deal for live multi-platform coverage in the United States and Canada. The agreement brings fans in the U.S. and Canada access to up to three live matches in each round of the home and away season for the remainder of this season and through the end of 2011. It also includes a number of Finals Series matches, including the 2009 Toyota AFL Grand Final from the Melbourne Cricket Ground in September.

In the United States, matches will be streamed live on ESPN360.com, ESPN’s signature live sports broadband network, as well as select AFL matches – including the Grand Final - being televised on ESPN2. In Canada, TSN or TSN2 will televise at least one live or delayed match per week.

The Pacific Islands won a tightly contested match over the North Queensland All Stars in Cairns on Wednesday night to take out the inaugural Pacific Islands Forum AFL Challenge Cup.

The match was enjoyed by many delegates from the Forum including the Prime Ministers of New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tossed the coin to get the match underway (pictured left).

The final score was Islanders 8.12 (60) to the All Stars 7.6 (48).

The pinnacle of the Asian Football season is the Asian Championships, this year to held in Kuala Lumpur at the Selangor Polo Club on 5th September.

The Malaysian Warriors are hosting this prestigious tournament for only the second time in commemoration of their 10th year of existence.

Teams participating include the hosts Malaysian Warriors, current title holder Dubai Heat, powerhouses Singapore, Hong Kong and Bali, as well as regular contenders Jakarta, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and the China Reds.

It is expected that the format will be two groups of five teams each playing each other once with the top two teams in each group playing off in cross-over semi-finals, with the two winners playing off in the Grand Final.

The Asian Championships get bigger each year and this year sees the second edition of a Junior Championship which will feature a significant number of Asian-born players. Teams from Jakarta (last year’s winner), Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore are expected to participate.

There will also be an Auskick session for the younger kids, as well as full catering and plenty of entertainment.

As always, it will be a huge day and all Malaysian footy followers are urged to get to the ground. Play starts at 10.00am

The Orang Eire (expat Irish in Malaysia) narrowly defeated the Malaysian Warriors to level the 3 match Finnegans Cup Series at one-all in an exciting International Rules match at Alice Smith gound in Kuala Lumpur on July 25th. This sets up a thrilling finale, to be played November 7th. The Warriors hold the Cup and it will all be on the line for the Gaelic boys.

An under-23 AFL Oceania side has been put together, with players gathered from New Zealand, Nauru, Samoa, Fiji and Tonga supplementing the bulk of the squad from Papua New Guinea. The team will tackle a North Queensland U23 side, an area noted for its strong growth in indigenous talent. The game will be played at Cazaly Stadium, Cairns.

The match is a joint initiative with the Federal Government, to complement the 2009 Pacific Islands Forum being held in Cairns, with Prime Ministers from across the South Pacific hopefully in attendance.

The teams will be coached by longtime Brisbane Lions Premiership teammates, Mal Michael (The Islanders) and Daryl White (North Queensland). AFL Oceania manager Andrew Cadzow will be Michael's assistant. Michael is part Papuan and White has indigenous Australian heritage.

The Islanders team has 8 Australian-based PNG scholarship holders, including PNG's best on ground in the IC08 grand final Donald Barry, and his teammates at that tournament Peter Labi and the Gold Coast-signed Amua Pirika. Players of note from elsewhere include other 2008 International Cup players Andriu Sucu (NZ), Jonas Amwana and Johnny Dagiaro (Nauru) and Sauluitoga (Samoa). The team has been selected with an eye to the future, with many of the players considered promising athletes, not necessarily the "best of the best" footballers at this point in time, although plenty of them are also good players.

The match will be played this evening in Cairns, Wednesday 5th August, entry free and the public welcome.

A report on New Zealand's selections can be found here and talented young Fijian Dylan Wolfgramm here.

Well known Jakarta Bintang, Craig Senger tragically lost his life in the recent bombing of the Hotel Marriott in Jakarta. All football followers in Asia have been greatly saddened by this news, and condolences have flowed to the Bintangs, his wife and family.

To help celebrate Craig's life, the Vietnam Swans will play a memorial match against the Lao Elephants on Saturday 8th August in Hanoi honouring Craig and other victims of the Jakarta Bombings.

To recognise the positive impact Craig had in his life on others, his wife Kate has set up the Craig Senger Indonesia Memorial Fund with the assistance of Westpac Bank.

In a return to the status quo, the United States Revolution have defeated Canada's Northwind in the international in Mason, Ohio, USA.

An early report from usfooty.com reports that:

On a hot muggy day at Mason Sports Complex the new faced USA Revolution defeated the Canadian Northwind team. The returning Revolution players spearheaded by Luke Nemeth lead the way; however the deciding factor was the outstanding performance by a number of rookies. The Revolution got off to a great start kicking 4.4, to 1.1 in the first quarter. They continued to lead comfortably for the rest of the day. The Revolution backline were outstanding in the second quarter, keeping the Canadian National team to just one more goal. The Revolution’s fitness, teamwork and physicality showed in the second half, as they ran out comfortable winners.

United States 12.11 (83)
Canada 5.3 (33)

The Beijing Bombers this year kicked off their first ever Metro League season, culminating on the weekend of July 18th with the DongCheng Demons finishing top of the table and taking the 2009 title.

The Beijing AFL's spring season saw teams - Dongcheng, the AZ Chaoyang Cats and the Santa Fe Saints - playing each other twice over three rounds, each side having one host round where they played both rival teams.

Over forty footballers pulled on the boots over the course of the three rounds, including around a dozen local Chinese players. Following the successful first-up season, an autumn league will be held as well this year, with matches on August 15, September 19 and October 10.

A full review of the whole season is available from the Beijing Bombers' website.

Last year saw the creation of the Lao Elephants, the first-ever Australian football club in the Lao PDR. The Phants, quickly famous worldwide for their distinctive pink and grey jumpers, impressed on the Asian footy circuit in 2008, putting in a strong showing at the Asian Championships and wining the Indochina Cup in Phnom Penh.

The Lao Elephants currently have around thirty players on their list, including around twenty-five expats from Australia, the USA and Great Britain, plus four or five Lao nationals.

However, the squad is spread across a wide geographical area, with about 18 hours worth of bus trip separating the Northerners in Vientiane and Luang Prabang from the Southerners, who are mainly Australians working at the mines in the town of Sepon.

The first half of 2009 has seen a quiet patch for the Elephants as far as international touring is concerned, but in its place on May 23rd this year they held their first-ever domestic clash, with the Northerners traveling down the Mekong to take on the Southerners in the city of Savannakhet.