World Footy News

Vancouver junior Scott Fleming has been true to his word and followed his Aussie Rules dream to Australia, arriving on the Gold Coast and scoring a try out with strong AFL Queensland side Broadbeach. We've followed Scott's plans for several years now so it's encouraging to see the talented product of the North Delta Junior AFL getting his chance Down Under.

For the first time since 2004 the Mid American Football League will have a new kid on the block as the Championship competition returns to a 6 team deal and a revised schedule. Minnesota Freeze after their Division II victory in USAFL Nationals last year have made their next step towards being the best team in the land by upping their commitment to playing in the top MAAFL schedule. This means they will square off against Chicago United, St Louis Blues, Milwaukee Bombers and Nashville Kangaroos.

The sixth team in the MAAFL draw this year is Cincinnati who in another first will team up with their friends the Louisville Kings to play road games in the MAAFL. This undoubtedly is uncharted territory for both teams and the MAAFL and sure to be worth keeping an eye on through 2008.

The MAAFL welcome in the new year with a remodelled website that has all the contact details of all clubs, latest news and will bring the latest scores and stats as games are played in 2008. Check it out at www.midfooty.com.

Report courtesy of Wayne Kraska at USFootyNews.

As the 2008 season is about to commence, here's a wrap of the 2007 premiers in all the major Australian Football leagues around the world. Hopefully this will stand as a good record for recalling the top teams at a glance. This is the second year we've compiled the list, following on from the article Club Premiers 2006.

We regret to inform readers that WFN will not be performing a World Footy Census for the 2007 season. Judging by the number of visits (over 7600) to our 2004 census it is a worthwhile exercise and one we had looked forward to doing. Unfortunately we just haven't had enough resources to do the three-year follow-up that we had intended, and we're too far into 2008 to expect leagues to provide accurate information. Perhaps come the end of this year we'll have a chance to track just how far international Aussie Rules has advanced.

The Putney Magpies are continuing the tradition of British clubs touring Europe for pre-season tour matches with a clash against the Flying Dutchmen in Amsterdam on April 13th.

The Magpies' first European tour will also be the first British club tour to the Netherlands. Joining the Dutchmen on the day will be players from the Brussels Saints, a club who have been quiet of late after a strong few seasons around 2005-06.

The North London Lions and West London Wildcats have been trailblazers in the touring tradition and this year will again be heading across Europe.

The Lions are heading to Berlin to take on the Crocodiles on the weekend of April 5-6th, with the Wildcats visiting Copenhagen on the same weekend to take on the Denmark Vikings, keen to start their IC preparations with a strong showing.

The Wildcats have visited Copenhagen, Stockholm, Barcelona and Croatia over the past four years, each time having a good hit out with the locals. The Lions have played in cities including Madrid, Strasbourg, Glasgow and Dublin.

The Catalan Australian Football League has rebounded this season, returning to four teams after 2007 saw the league go back to only Valls and Barcelona fighting it out for the title.

The founder club Belfry Valls will be joined by a second team from the town, dubbed the "Valls Fire". The Barcelona Stars have been renamed the Cornellà Bocs (Catalan for "Goats") and the fourth team will be based in the tiny nation of Andorra, situated high in the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain.

The first round sees the Bocs take on the Fire on March 9th, followed by Belfry versus Andorra on March 16th.

In addition, interested parties are hoping to start teams in Pamplona and Valencia, two cities located not too far from the Catalan league.

The Catalan metropolis Barcelona is currently the likely host city for this year's EU Cup, to be held in October. Organisers are hoping for a delegation from the AFL to make an appearance, the event being just after the US Nationals where a few big names have been attendees in the past.

"I make no apologies that this list is of those who dominated in the VFL competition, and then the AFL, as I believe the Victorian competition always was a quasi-national competition. The game started in Victoria, and has been led from Victoria."

With that statement Melbourne-based journalist Mike Sheahan condemned many of the greatest footballers of all-time to distant memories and destroyed any chance the AFL-commissioned book "The Australian Game of Football" had of truly being an accurate reflection of the great Australian game.

The board of the Barassi International Youth Tournament, with the endorsement of the AFL has announced its intention to postpone the 2008 BYT which was to be played in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory this October.

The tournament in the past (formerly known as the Jim Stynes Cup) has seen teams from New Zealand, South Africa, Samoa, Denmark, USA and Nauru attend with other teams featuring local participants from smaller communities around Australia. Only two countries had confirmed their participation at the 2008 BYT. Others had expressed interest but were unable to commit the necessary funds.

While some junior development programs offshore are funded by the AFL, countries are required to themselves raise funds to send teams to tournaments in Australia. The organisation of the Barassi Tournament itself is made possible by private contributions and sponsorships.

With some countries expressing the desire to send U17 youth squads to the 2008 International Cup and with a growing list of nations participating in the senior tournament, it might make sense for the two tournaments to combine in future to make the most of travel packages by sending larger squads, perhaps even including a women's squad.

In the meantime, it seems that the BIAYT seeks to remain the primary youth tournament and is slated to go ahead in October 2009, however the board is initiating discussions with stakeholders concerning the future of the tournament.

While it is disappointing that this year's event is postponed, a potential 2009 tournament could help fill the international calendar between senior International Cups.

In today's article on preparations for the Australian Football International Cup (also often referred to as the AFL International Cup or de facto Aussie Rules World Cup) we start to look at support such as transport and apparel for the competing nations.

An interesting article in The Age profiles the work of AFL multicultural development officers over the past 2 years.

Relevant to international footy is the fact that the article mentions the South African push and Irish gaelic football converts in the AFL, but pushes the angle that the AFL's development focus is still largely domestic.

There are now several development officers working out of AFL clubs, mostly in Melbourne but also in multicultural hotspots of growing interstate areas like Perth and western Sydney. These AFL officers are working with young groups including new African and Asian arrivals to introduce them to our game and culture. It is an interesting note that many of the schools that these kids go to do not even have the sport in their curriculum.

With close to 130,000 arrivals each year, this is some positive growth of a market which is small by international standards. Introducing these people to the sport may help the code to grow slightly and give them other options to the sports their families grew up with back at home. The AFL hopes that as a spin-off, should these migrants become professional players, that it may help people overseas to better identify with our game.

The article "AFL seeks converts in its own backyard" can be read here.

The French footy season kicks off in earnest on March 15th with a clash between the French national team and a German selection in Strasbourg. The game will mark the first appearance of players from the new Bourdeaux Bombers, who will join their counterparts from the Strasbourg Kangaroos and Paris Cockerels for the encounter. Kick-off is at 5pm, with free entry for spectators at the Hautepierre Sports Centre.

The Bourdelais will then back this up with their first home match, hosting Barcelona in early April, while Strasbourg have a match scheduled against the Flying Dutchmen in the coming months.

The weekend of July 5th has also been earmarked for the French national club championship, with Paris, Strasbourg and Bourdeaux possibly to be joined by a new club from Montpellier. The new club would be the second to have existed in their area of France, not far from Perpignan where the short-lived St Esteve Saints existed a few years ago.

More information at the internet home of French footy, FootballAustralien.com.

As we've mentioned previously, the Australian Football League is developing its news page for the 2008 Australian Football International Cup. They've now registered a new domain that will redirect to that page. Hopefully users will find it a convenient shortcut. The page also has photos and video from the 2005 event (the captains are pictured at left), and we're told that "the site will be updated with lots of stories about the history of the Cup as well as up-to-date news on all the competing countries".

ic08.com.au

Let's hope that as the Cup draws nearer (just six months to go) the AFL can find space for the Cup logo on the front page, directing general readers to the tournament.