World Footy News

The story of footy is about change. Except that it does not all come from the top, or from the centre.

In the words of Australian artist Paul Kelly’s song… ‘From little things big things grow’….

The way in which the game is played around the world, often involving smaller teams on smaller playing fields, and sometimes with some rule modifications, may shape the future of the game in Australia. And what better day to discuss the future of Australia's indigenous sport, with a global view, than Australia Day?

This will most likely be our final article on unofficial World Rankings for 2008 until our final list is released, based on the user comments so far and a final vote by worldfootynews.com staff.

In this article we consider where to rank the countries that did not attend IC08 but which have been deemed eligible for ranking based on good numbers of players that would qualify under International Cup rules. These countries are: Tonga, Spain (Catalonia), France, Germany and Croatia (see Debate - World footy rankings 2008 - other countries to consider for further discussion).

During the off-season, as has been pointed out by numerous scribes the AFL clubs love to tie up with visiting celebrities, sports or others, for photo-ops thereby garnering some useful publicity. However, living in Asia, and being an inveterate televised sports watcher it always strikes me as remarkable the number of chaps one sees in the crowd shots at international cricket and tennis wearing AFL jumpers.

So let's get all us international footballers wearing our club guernseys when we grace international events that have significant television audiences!

The search for a major sponsor in these deteriorating economic times has been a difficult task for some AFL clubs, so it would have been a great relief for the Western Bulldogs to secure Mission Foods for the next 3 years, worth $4.5million. In a press release the club stated that Mission Foods’ products will be distributed nationally and be available from all leading food retailers and independent supermarkets from Monday 19th January 2009. “Mission Foods have chosen to partner with the Western Bulldogs to spearhead their launch into the Australian market place for the Mission brand”, said Western Bulldogs President David Smorgon.

Established in 1949, Mission Foods is part of Mexican based group Gruma Corporation, with operations spanning Mexico, the USA, Central and South America, UK and now Australia. Mission Foods are exclusively focused on the manufacture of flatbread and Mexican products and corn based snacks with 60 years experience manufacturing over a quarter of the world’s tortilla’s.

From an international footy point of view the introduction of a large Mexican company is enticing. To the best of our knowledge Australian football has no presence on the ground in the country of 107 million people. With Mission Foods CEO Juan Gonzalez reportedly a "sports nut" no doubt the Doggies will want to get him on board as a supporter of the club. Wouldn't it be tremendous if they could also stoke an interest in introducing our great game to Mexico? worldfootynews.com has contacted both the Western Bulldogs and the AFL with some initial thoughts on this. We'll keep our readers informed if there are any developments.

Australia Day around the world is celebrated by many Australian rules football clubs. Some hold matches (despite being in the depths of northern hemisphere winters), while others just get together to party and celebrate all things Australian, often raising much needed funds for their team's year ahead.

As we did for the 2008 AFL grand final we will list details of events here. Please post details of your event in the comments section and we will periodically add them to the main article here. While Australia day itself is celebrated on 26th of January in Australia the events around the world may be held on a nearby date so please check carefully.

Also, please check with your intended destination - we can't guarantee their plans won't change or that there will be enough spaces for everyone.

The Old Dark Navy Blues are visting Penang as part of a promotional tour following their recent sponsorship with Tourism Malaysia. It is not known as to whether Fev will make the trip, or whether the locals have been briefed on what to expect.

The club will take along a TV crew from Channel 10 station and leading football writer Mike Sheahan and a photographer from the Melbourne Herald Sun newspaper.

Apart from daily reports in the newspaper, the television station will have live crossovers throughout the three days in its news and sports bulletins.

“This will be fantastic for Malaysia,” Tourism Malaysia’s Melbourne director Putra Hilmy Elias told Bernama.

Tourism Malaysia has signed a sponsorship package with the Carlton Football Club.

See article in the New Straight Times for more.

Ben Graham today moved to be the first Australian, barring any unforeseen incidents in the next two weeks, to play in an NFL Super Bowl. The remarkable journey that has played out as the post retirement scenario for the former Geelong Football Club captain sees him as one of the combatants in a sports event that captures global attention. Both punters met in the centre of the field 90 minutes prior to the start of the game and wished the other good luck, Rocca’s Philadelphia Eagles going into the match as overwhelming favourites. Graham was under an injury cloud going into the match with groin trouble, but was ultimately cleared to play.

The Arizona Cardinals lead early and took a 24 – 6 lead at half time. Graham punted once for 34 yards and held for one successful field goal and three extra point conversions in the first half. Rocca launched a huge 58 yard punt to the 5 yard line (which was returned 10 yards) just before half time and held for two successful and one unsuccessful field goals kicked by Eagles kicker David Akers.

USA tennis star Andy Roddick, in Melbourne for the Australian Open was given some Aussie Rules tips by Richmond AFL stars. The AFL players also joined a round of tennis too and apparently impressed. The mutual publicity stunt achieved some good coverage in Melbourne.

The Herald Sun featured the story in the article Andy Roddick handy, but Tigers are ace.

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With the 2009 introduction of a Northern Territory representative team into AFL Queensland's top league, the Velocity Sports Cup, the participating clubs will be playing matches at venues right across the state (QLD) and territory (NT). The NT Thunder (appropriately named after the storms that accompany the wet season) open their campaign on Saturday 4th April at 7pm with a home game in Darwin at TIO Stadium against 2008 premiers Southport. That will be the first of 5 matches at that venue in the minor round, but they will also play 4 home games around 1300 km south, in Alice Springs, right in the heart of the Outback. With the squad split between the two locations, surely their alternating travel must be the world's longest distance for a home game? Such flexibility is something international clubs will appreciate.

The pride of the Top End will of course play away games in Queensland's two biggest population centres, Brisbane and the Gold Coast (around 2000 / 2800 km away from Alice / Darwin), but their journies do not end there. The demanding travel schedule also includes trips to Townsville and Cairns, both in Queensland's north (see map below). All in all the Thunder are set for a tough initiation into Queensland's league, with the players likely to rack up more kilometres than any other Australian footy team. The possible exceptions are Western Australia's two AFL sides, Fremantle and West Coast, but even they will only travel 10 times in a 22 round season, compared with 13 for the NT side (given 4 home games are in Alice).

Inoke Ratu on paper, joined the Western Bulldogs last year when Western Bulldogs became the first AFL club to make use of the International Scholarship List, which allows clubs to effectively quarantine young international talent by signing them to $1000 per year contracts. This gives the club the opportunity to develop the player overseas (or for $20k they can look to move them to Australia). But Ratu's visa has been rejected and the Western Bulldogs are understood to be today set to appeal the decision to deny Inoke Ratu a visa to enter Australia.

Diplomatic tensions between the Australian governement and the interim Fijian goverment have seen a ban on Fijian military entering the country. While Inoke Ratu is not a member of the military, his father is and it seems that is enough for the Department of Immigration to deny the visa. Commenting on his visa rejection Ratu said "I'm a bit disappointed at the moment - everything that has been my target, my aim this year has been turned down just because of my visa application."

This snag comes as a blow with wider implications for the scholarship scheme with the Bulldogs the only club so far to have used it to take a chance on a foreign prospect. It seems that clubs other than the Bulldogs have seen little attraction in it so far and this situation is not likely to enhance how it is viewed.

Some of South Africa's finest cricketers were introduced to Australian football and the AFL South Africa program today. Pictured above are, left to right, South Africa’s Lonwabo Tsotsobe, the AFL’s Jason McCartney who coached the AFL South African team at IC08, Collingwood’s Sharrod Wellingham and pace bowler Makhaya Ntini.

A group of South African cricketers and staff, including Johan Botha, Makhaya Ntini, Hashim Amla and Albie Morkel, visited the Lexus Centre in Melbourne to meet Collingwood players and staff, including captain Nick Maxwell, Harry O’Brien, Sean Rusling and Anthony Corrie, as well as AFL staff David Matthews, Kevin Sheehan, Jason McCartney and Kevin Sheedy. South Africa are currently touring Australia, and although they lost the recent Twenty20 matches, they won the series that counted most - knocking off the Test champions 2 wins to 1.

According to a press release, members of the South African touring party have developed an interest in Australian Rules football having seen how the game has grown in South Africa in recent years, with 17,300 participants now registered in South Africa. Coach Mickey Arthur explained that he follows the sport having gained an interest through his name who happened to be the brother of former AFL player Matthew 'Spider' Burton. The cricketers appeared to enjoy kicking the footies around.

Amla (pictured below studying a football), already a star in Test cricket and touted as a future captain of South Africa, was interviewed on Collingwood TV (warning to international readers, Bigpond probably not available) and although he conceded (whilst dodging football's) that he was unaware of the game being played in his homeland, he could see it had possibilities. Kevin Sheedy gave the cricketers a presentation on AFL South Africa's grass-roots work and was also interviewed.