World Footy News

The Asociación Argentina de Fútbol Australiano has organised footy on-and-off since 1997, with at one stage four 7-a-side senior teams playing in the Buenos Aires area, as well as clinics for juniors.

The AAFAu is part of CODA sports, a group promoting alternative sports such as Australian rules, Rugby League, Lacrosse, Gaelic football and many more in Argentina. Their old website is still operational, but hadn't been updated since 2004. We recently heard news of a new site, with the following encouraging message (in Spanish) posted in June '07:

Australian Football is reborn in Argentina - at the hands of CODASPORTS an era of rebirth is commencing. After the brief heyday from 2001 to 2004, the renewed interest of many athletes in Argentina has led to the organization of a new event in August, where fans of this great sport will meet to outline a future major league. With 60 registered players, we are ready for our annual tournament 2007.

We haven't heard how the 2007 tournament went (or if it got off the ground), but readers may have seen the comments left here saying a set of tests between Argentina and Chile will be held in 2008 - Chile having also seen attempts to start a team in Santiago a few years back, before disappearing off the radar.

The Catalan league at one stage also had a large Brazilian contingent, and was planning a match between Catalonia and the "Brazil Anacondas". Though the match was dropped from the schedule due to other tournaments and matches getting in the way, the interest may still be floating around.

Exciting times, let's hope footy can lay some serious foundations in South America.

The West Coast Eagles' number one ruckman, Dean Cox, has written a player's perspective on their recent trip to South Africa. The article appears on the PerthNow website. In it, he talks about the conditions the locals endure and the speed with which children learn the game. "We head out to the Umlazi township again but this time to run a clinic for kids from the orphanage. These kids are amazing. The talent they show from learning the game for about three months indicate that one day there will be an AFL player from Africa".

"I visited the orphanage. We had lollies, Sakatas and bars in our backpacks. We offer them to the kids, which they kindly accept. They take handfulls until all is gone. We notice that one of the younger girls doesn't really get too much food so when everyone has left we hand her another bar.

The first thing she does is open the wrapper, rip a piece off and give it to one of her friends. It was amazing how someone so hungry could share her first bit of a bar with someone else. These kids were just unbelievable".

Read the full article: Eagles ruckman Dean Cox shares South Africa travel diary and check out his photos.

Readers may have seen a British TV show called Man's Work, in which the somewhat weedy Englishman Ashley Hames travels the world trying his hand at various pursuits seen as suiting persons with unusually high levels of testosterone. After experiencing Alaskan king crab fishing and lumberjacking in British Columbia, in one episode Hames spent a week trying to learn Australian rules with the Sydney Swans.

Nick Davis gave him his initial training sessions, with a practice match against a local primary school side and a training run with a Sydney women's team called the Sharks. Eventually he takes part in a full-blown match of senior men's footy, and does relatively well all things considered, although he requires numerous x-rays afterwards.

While the episode plays up the violent image of the game held by most non-Australians, overall it paints a fairly positive picture of the skills and fitness level required by AFL footballers.

The episode aired in Australia late last Thursday night, British viewers may have seen it earlier this year. It can be viewed online here.

In this article WFN completes a review of 2007 and previews what we can expect in 2008, along with a wishlist of things we'd like to see.

Happy New Year to all our readers. WFN wishes you a healthy and prosperous 2008.

On the international footy front, what a great 2007 - surely the best the game of Australian Football has ever had. The good news just kept on coming - record levels of attendance within Australia, record investment in footy in South Africa, a rush of Irish talent to the AFL, a host of new clubs across Europe, the giants of China and India stirring, and North America continuing its steady growth - clearly the vast majority of indicators were positive for Aussie Rules. We look back at some of the exciting news from the year just finished and think about what lies ahead.

The AFL has updated their International Cup page, with basic details of the tournament (mostly as previously reported here). In 2005 the Cup featured on their website through a mixture of stories from worldfootynews.com and other sources. Let's hope the coverage in 2008 surpasses those levels, but with the AFL finals on, it will be interesting to see how much front page space is dedicated to the tournament. Still, the amount of attention given to international footy in 2007 has been excellent, which augers well for the years ahead.

In other online news, a new International Cup Facebook group has been created, and don't forget to tell your Facebook friends about the World Footy group (note you do have to join Facebook to access either site).

The Australian Rules Football League of Ireland is looking forward to an exciting 2008, with the creation of two new clubs on the west coast in County Mayo and County Kerry.

Denis Kennelly, a cousin of Sydney star Tadhg, has organised the first training session for the Kerry Kangaroos for December 28th. A number of Denis' former clubmates from the Leeside Lions will be on hand to assist, as will Dublin Demons President John Enright, himself a Kerry native.

A big bonus though will be the presence of Swans star Tadhg, who will assist his cousin in organising the session and ensure media interest locally. The Kerry club has been an ambition of Denis' for some years now and having recently moved home from Cork he decided it was time to put his plan into effect. Kerry has long been the pre-eminent county in Gaelic Football and this should ensure that any recruits should make for a very competitive team.

Meanwhile, further north on the western seaboard, the Mayo Mariners have begun life online. The club have set up a website in order to attract recruits in the county which recently lost Pierce Hanley to the Brisbane Lions. The club's website can be found at www.mayomariners.com and they are hopeful that some favourable media attention will draw interest from those interested in playing in Mayo and the Surrounding Sligo and North Roscommon catchments.

There's no question that South Africa is the AFL's number one priority in terms of international development of Australian Football. The past couple of years have seen a significant roll out of support programs, some direct funding, and assistance in gaining major sponsorship from corporations such as Tattersal's and Costa Logistics.

Although there are many other programs being developed around the world, both with and without AFL support, the short term successful rise of Aussie Rules internationally would seem to be most closely tied to the South Africa experiment. So it is with great interest to see recent political changes in that country, and the predictions of possible future effects which analysts are now in demand to explain.

An article appeared in the Herald Sun called "Sheedy California Dreamin", in which the AFL legend was quizzed on his thoughts about several topics.

Among the comments, the new AFL ambassador expressed his desire to see the game promoted more in the USA, even talking up planning construction of an Aussie Rules stadium in Los Angeles similar to the recently completed stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Sheedy's comments follow his recent promotional tour to the States where he saw the growth of the game there first hand.

While there are three clubs with local metro footy leagues in California, it was the recent exhibition match between the Sydney Swans and Kangaroos which highlighted the need for a dedicated venue. Due to problems securing a venue, the UCLA's Intramural athletic field hosted a makeshift oval and temporary stands which accomodated a crowd of just over 3,000 people but had sold out weeks in advance.

The reduced capacity caused major problems in catering and there was allegedly a spectator safety issue preventing more patrons attending. These problems may have had something to do with the high costs associated with running the event and this year's proposed match between Geelong and Richmond in LA being cancelled. An AFL venue, which Sheedy recognises may take decades in the planning, would be a significant investment in the ongoing growth of the game in the USA.