World Footy News

For the past few seasons, the bulk of matches for the Czech Lions and Croatian Knights has been supplied by the Tri-Nations series they conducted together with the Kangaroos from Austria's capital Vienna.

This year however has seen both clubs shift their focus onto kick-starting domestic competitions, with the Czech AFL playing their fourth match between the All-Stars and Marauders this week, and the Croatian Association of Australian Football now up to six matches and counting between cross-town rivals the Zagreb Hawks and Agram Power in their second local league season.

These developments are part of a wider trend across Europe, where former one-club-countries such as the Netherlands, Norway and Austria are seeing the foundations laid for local comps.

Norway will soon see its third club take the field, with the newly-created Ås Battlers set to take on the Oslo Trolls on August 23.

After a slow start to the season in the Oslo area, the match will be Norway's first domestic inter-club clash. The team in Ås, a small town just outside the Norwegian capital, started training earlier this year under the leadership of Adam O'Toole.

Since 2008, Barcelona's Aussie Rules club the Cornellà Bocs have counted among their number a player by the name of Juan Carlos Herrera. The Spanish name doesn't seem out of place at first glance, but Herrera's background is a little different from the usual kind of recruit found kicking the footy in Catalonia - he's actually from Bolivia, and possibly even more surprisingly, he's just one of a growing number of Latin Americans who have picked up the Australian game in Europe.

With large numbers of Latinos migrating to Spain for better career opportunities, the Catalan footy league has counted Brazilians, Argentines and Ecuadorians in its ranks over the years, with the Catalonia-based Argentines even fielding a squad at last year's WAFF World 9s in Valls.

In France too, last week's French Cup saw Venezuelan Marlys Maldonaldo pull on the boots for the Toulouse Crocodiles. A search through the Footy Record reveals a number of Brazilians have kicked the footy in Sweden, and the current games record holder for the Helsinki Heatseekers is one Fernando Leon, a Colombian who also made the trip to Melbourne last year as part of the Finland Icebreakers squad at the 2008 International Cup.

Having left his home town of Santa Cruz in Bolivia ten years ago to search for work in Spain, Herrera's journey to become probably the first Bolivian to take up Australian rules football began when he accompanied a French friend of his to see the Bocs play a match in Valls.

The OAFL is gearing up for their 1000th game this coming weekend. Scheduled for Saturday, July 18th at 1:00 p.m. at the Humber North field, the Toronto Eagles will face the High Park Demons.

The US National Women's team, the US Freedom, will be touring Australia this coming August. The team will play matches in Sydney, Cairns, Melbourne and Bendigo in Australia as the first ever tour by an US women's team to Australia. The team will be coached by Australian expatriate Wayne Kraska and US Revolution (and International Cup) representative Dan Sarbacker. The Captains are Jenny Sarbacker, Helen Spink and Tina Arend. The team is drawn from across the US, with Arizona, Atlanta, Denver, Milwaukee, Minnesota and New York clubs represented.

The development of Aussie Rules for women in the US has seen great expansion in the handful of years it has been underway - and it is hoped this tour will provide even more incentive for women to play the game. The tour is a major milestone in the development of women's footy not just in the US but outside Australia, and should pave the way for future international tournaments. While on the Australian tour they will be assisting in developing the game in Australia also, as the Bendigo visit is aimed to help Bendigo establish an adult women's team to complement the three junior teams already playing there.

The full team and schedule is listed below.

The Ontario Australian Football League would like to announce the recent re-launch of their league website.

With a fresh new look and added multimedia experiences, the league is hoping the new enhancements attract local and international interest and assist with promoting Australian football on Canadian soil.

The league would like to thank previous web master, Salvatore Capoferri for all his hard work on the previous site, his volunteer work was greatly appreciated.

The league would also like to thank their newest Silver Sponsor: RM Communications for the development of the new site.

The new website can be visited at OAFL.ca.

The Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) are sending their Under 18 age group representative team to Auckland in October to play the New Zealand Under 20 team in two matches over the NZ Labour Day weekend in Auckland.

The New Zealand Under 20’s team had initially been included in the Senior National Provincial Championships to be held at Parrs Park Auckland whilst confirmation of the Victorian side's touring availability was determined. With the amateur side's attendance confirmed, the Senior NPC will now revert to its normal format with the four regions Wellington, Auckland, Waikato and Canterbury contesting for senior honours.

The two matches between the New Zealand Under 20’s and the Victorian Amateur Under 18’s will take place in conjunction with the Senior NPC with the first game on Saturday October 24th at 2.00pm and the second match on Monday October 26th at noon.

The pool rounds of the NAB Australian Under 16's Championships have recently concluded. Queensland, substitute home to many promising Papua New Guinea footballers, had a fantastic tournament. The Scorpions (Queensland team) went undefeated through their three matches. Most of the pool games were played at the Blacktown Oval, the future home of the West Sydney team in the AFL. And looming as PNG's next big thing was talented youngster David Meli.

We are pleased that our good friends at AFANA announced this week that new leadership has stepped forward for day-to-day operations in the organization. This follows the retirement of Rob de Santos and Ann Solomon several months ago. Kimber Smith, AFANA's marketing and PR director, will be expanding her role and will join forces with Joe Fidler to provide interim leadership for AFANA. Kimber will head up management and marketing initiatives and Joe will coordinate operations.

"I am pleased that Kimber and Joe have stepped forward to provide interim leadership for AFANA,” said Rob. “I am sure they will provide exactly what AFANA needs to begin to move into a new era. I've promised that I will make myself available to provide counsel and technical support to them throughout the transition. After 14 years, it is time for me to seek new horizons and for AFANA to get newly invigorated leadership."

"We are committed to the organization's long-standing mission to promote viewership of Australian football in North America," said Kimber. "At the same time, we will be exploring different-yet-appropriate avenues to further support the mission and raise awareness and interest in the sport in the US and Canada."

Preparations for this year's EU Cup in Samobor, Croatia are well underway, with 12 sides having confirmed by the July 1st deadline. Aussie Rules Europe have capped the final squad number at 16 national teams.

Reportedly on the list so far for Europe's 9-a-side Championships are Central Europe's Austria, Czech Republic and hosts Croatia, in addition to fellow continental Europeans Spain, Catalonia, France, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands.

From the British Isles, Scotland and the reigning champions England Dragonslayers have confirmed.

The most surprising announcement is the exciting news of a confirmation of attendance from Russia - a country so far unknown to the international footy scene. WFN will have some information on this development as soon as we know more!

It's still an open race who will fill the final four places, with previous champions Sweden not yet locked in, nor the Welsh who are still to make their EU Cup debut despite playing a number of tests against the Dragonslayers in recent times. The newer squads from Iceland and Norway have also indicated an interest in coming.

The usual EU Cup conference will this year feature a meeting with AFL Europe's Gerard Murphy. While this reporter is merely speculating about what is on the agenda, I'll be optimistic that this will see steps towards greater collaboration between all sides in Europe and the creation of a European governing body.

Our readers will also be very interested to hear if there is any further discussion about an 18-a-side championship under full IC rules in future, featuring the big guns of Ireland, Denmark, British Bulldogs or possibly even the Peres Peace Team.

Heading into the half way point of the Ontario Australian Football League season the contenders are starting to separate themselves from the pretenders, and many clubs start to set themselves for a serious run into September action. Many of the clubs have a lot of work to do while others will be looking to keep the momentum going as they build towards September.

AFL agent Ricky Nixon is planning to further his interest in the Irish market by establishing coaching clinics in Irish primary schools. His exploits are currently being told in a three part documentary on Irish television called ‘The Oz factor’.

Nixon who has previously been very unpopular amongst the Gaelic Athletic Association establishment has claimed that “This will probably put the fear of God into GAA people but we’re starting to look at potential talent at a younger age. And if the door was shut in my face in Ireland in the past I expect it will be slammed in my face now.”

Four schools, whom Nixon has declined to name, have agreed to the programme which begins when the new school term gets underway in September. Nixon is aware of potential criticism but remains unrepentant. “People will overreact to these clinics and will insinuate that I’m only here to fleece your country of its young talent, but the reality is that I’ll be lucky to get one layer from this initiative. I’m doing it to drum up more interest in the AFL in Ireland and get more kids au fait with the skills of our game from an early age.” says Nixon. “An Irish guy actually came to me with the proposal and he’s got clearance from the schools involved. We’re starting off with four clinics and the schools are more than happy to go along with it.”