World Footy News

Chilean football is up and running with the formation of the Santiago Saints (los Santos) AFC which kicked off in April and has been getting great numbers to training at the foot of the snow capped Andes mountains.

Los Santos are coached by Pablo Mejias, who grew up in Australia and played some footy at the Port Adelaide Magpies. Pablo is one of six Chilean nationals currently training in a club that also includes Australian, Peruvian, Kiwi, French, English and Irish representation. Jose Romero of Kangaroos and Western Bulldogs fame is the only known player of Chilean background player to have made it at AFL level to date.

Los Santos are preparing to tour Buenos Aires for the historical first Latin American international against the Argentinean Eagles, las Aguilas, on June 28. The Aguilas are looking to kick-start footy in Argentina after running a minor league format from 1998 until 2005.

The countries are fierce sporting rivals and the maiden Australian football fixture should provide plenty of entertainment for those coming to the game.

For many countries competing at this year's International Cup, securing sponsorship has proved a challenge. Not so for the Peres Peace Team, a multi-ethnic and multi-religious team from Israel and Palestine. Several AFL figures have already pledged their support. Brownlow medalist Robert DiPierdomenico will coach the team and now Ron Barassi has committed to assisting DiPierdomenico on game days.

As reported previously the Pratt Foundation and Carlton Football Club will sponsor the team. Other major sponsors include AFL South Africa supporter Costa Group as well as Hyundai, NAB, Sport and Recreation Victoria, Diadora, James Richardson Group, Victorian Multicultural Commission, University of Sydney and Deloitte.

In an article on The Australian Jewish News website, DiPierdomenico expressed his desire to take the Peace Team to an AFL match and introduce them to some big football names and most importantly getting the message across that "we can all live in one world.”

The International Cup is now little more than two months away. For the island nation of Samoa, home to around 180,000 people, sending a squad to the tournament is no small feat. The minimum wage is as little as a dollar an hour and costs to send a team are between fifty and eighty thousand dollars. Teams able to secure accommodation or airfares sponsorship find funding easier but still face costs of at least thirty thousand dollars. Yet at the same time, the tournament offers Australian football priceless exposure and a great opportunity for growth in many of these countries. For the past two years, AFL Samoa and the organisation's National Game Development Manager, Michael Roberts have been busy securing partnerships for their team, to help make Samoa's International Cup goal a reality.

In exciting news for Aussie Rules in China, it has been announced in an article on the AFL's website that the City of Tianjin is investing $1.5 million to develop a community facility that will include an Australian Football oval. The full story is So sews seeds for football in Tianjin, by Chelsea Roffey.

We've previously been told by people in the know of the fundamental importance of securing the approval of the Chinese government, something other major sports have overlooked and as a result wasted sizeable investments. It has taken key stakeholders time, but it seems footy has successfully negotiated this issue. Read on for more information about football developments in China.

As countries begin settling on their line-ups for the third International Cup, it’s interesting to note that the coaching staff behind the British Bulldogs are very much focussed on players that have been developed in the UK, even if that means overlooking, in theory at least, potential players Down Under – even an AFL-listed one.

In a similar initiative to the Melbourne football club in 2007, fifty international students were guests of the Carlton football club for their match against Fremantle on 24 May. The Australian National Institute of Business and Technology students, who were mostly from India, sat with Carlton’s cheer squad and experienced first-hand the excitement generated by the Blues final quarter comeback.

Several of the students shared their feelings about the game in an article titled Carlton, Bollywood bond at The Dome on the Carlton football club website.

Apologies for the recent outage of worldfootynews.com

The webhost's server is run by a third party located in the United States. Last Saturday they experienced an explosion and fire that resulted in significant downtime for "9,000 servers" and "over 1 million web sites".

Although we are back up at time of writing, periodic breaks may occur over the next week or so as repairs are made, and response times may be slow. Frankly, we're surprised to be back up so soon.

The South Australian state league team representing the SANFL has cemented the league's reputation as the best competition outside of the AFL. The interstate match yesterday at Adelaide Oval was SA's tenth win from their last eleven matches, and the emphatic nature of their victory over the Big V should put the debate to rest, at least until the next time the two states meet.

Yuta Kobayashi, one of the AFL's International Development Coordinators, was recently in India where he assisted AFL India with their plans to send a team to this year's International Cup. The AFL and AFL India are taking several steps to get an Indian side to the tournament, including recruiting a high profile Australian cricketer's support.

The Adelaide Football Club are the latest AFL club planning to bring a talented young Gaelic footballer to Australia for a trial. Teenager Carl Dias is expected to arrive for a four-week trial with the Crows in August. Although a member of Dublin's under 18 squad, the youngster came to attention while playing for a combined Coláiste Éoin/St Benildus schools team against an underage representative side from Adelaide in an International Rules match earlier this year.

Having some contact with the Adelaide Crows, this writer has urged them not to be left behind in the pursuit of Irish players (that advice goes to all AFL clubs), and the word over the past year had been that they were considering their options, and as recently as last week club CEO Steven Trigg suggested they were ready to make a move. Now that move has a name, in Carl Dias.

The International Rules series that was scrapped at the end of 2006 is set to return in October. The Irish site RTE Sport reports that the AFL and GAA have confirmed the return of the series with games in Melbourne and Perth in October. A long and drawn out process by the GAA to decide whether they wanted to resume the series left the AFL with little time to organise venues in October. Due to stadia around the country being utilised by cricket and the upcoming rugby league World Cup, the series almost fell over as the GAA put an ultimatum to the AFL to have venues arranged. The GAA’s willingness for the series to continue was evident by an extension of their original deadline for the AFL to confirm venues. Even now it is not known what the venues in the two cities will be.

Long time readers of worldfootynews.com may remember one of our original writers, Jake Anson. Born and bred in Warrnambool in country Victoria, Jake has been busy since 2005, joining the growing army of Aussies out teaching the world about Australian Football. We recently caught up with Jake to learn about some great results with juniors and women's footy in Alberta, Canada.

Back in late 2005 Jake landed in South Africa where he embarked on AFL South Africa's progam of taking Australian tourists to local communities. You can read more about his experience in Aussies on the Road.

Next stop was Europe, an inevitable pilgrimage for many young Australians. But he didn't stay long.