World Footy News

Back in March of this year WFN looked at a wide list of countries that may consider sending their team to the 2008 Australian Football International Cup (see 2008 International Cup - country attendance likelihood list). Eight months later, and much less than a year before the tournament, we listed the teams the AFL say have expressed an interest (see IC 2008 - Hands up for Division 1?). We've spoke to representatives from most of those nations to see whether they are expecting to get Down Under for international footy's premier event. If all the countries we rate as moderate or better make the journey, the Cup will feature a major jump in numbers from past years, going from 11 (2002) and 10 (2005) to 16 in 2008, giving the AFL the number of nations they are hoping for to give balanced divisions. That's not including possible teams based on recent ethnic migrant groups in Melbourne, whichever division they end up in.

The Swedish Elks held a national team training camp in Jönköping last weekend as the start of preparations for their planned International Cup debut in 2008. Thirty Swedish players and two coaches took part, with another ten players under consideration but unable to attend.

Swedish AFL president Jimmy Ljunggren is rating Sweden very likely to make the trip down under. As he explains, "We had representativies from Gothenburg, Stockholm, Falun, Karlstad, Landskrona and Malmö. We are planning to orginize another camp in April, a club-cup event in May, an international game in June (most likely Finland) and one in July (hopefully against Denmark)."

The session was organized by Swedish footy veteran Andreas Svensson and coached by Australians Ryan Kingsley and Cameron Crooks. Ljunggren tells us Svensson is currently the frontrunner for the job as captain as the most experienced campaigner and the only Swede to have played in the IC so far, representing Denmark in 2002.

Its official! The Ottawa Swans Australian Football Club will compete in the Ontario Australian Football League in 2008 becoming the 10th team in the largest Australian Football League outside of Australia. Finally football is coming back to Ottawa!

The AFL website has listed all four of the community camps to be held by AFL clubs in South Africa in the coming months. All states and territories of Australia will also have camps (see Lets go camping for more details - also being shown on AFL club websites as "AFL's pitch to the nation and the world"). The South African travels are:

West Coast Eagles from Dec 8 - 15 2007 (KwaZulu Natal, especially Durban and Umlazi)
Collingwood from Jan 20 - Feb 6 2008 (Potchefstroom and Western Cape)
Carlton from Jan 21 - Feb 3 2008 (Gauteng Province)
Fremantle from Jan 27 - 4 Feb 2008 (presumably North West Province)

Exhibition match: Carlton vs Fremantle, SuperSport (formerly Centurion) Park, Pretoria (Gauteng Province), February 2nd 2008.

It's easy to take all this for granted, but if two years ago we'd predicted this much AFL involvement in another country our readers would be posting comments that we were crazy - and resist the temptation now people....

During West Coast's stay they will spend a night living with the locals in Umlazi, see Eagles will rough it on African adventure.

Melbourne's The Age newspaper reported this morning that business leaders, representatives of the AFL and board members of AFL clubs would meet tonight to pledge funds to make the Peres Peace Team a reality for next year's International Cup.

Although footy has had an on-again off-again presence in Israel for well over a decade, the team would require training young athletes from scratch, with only 9 months to have a team ready for the cup. Reportedly, the side will be based around soccer players, with expat Australians coaching in Israel and the AFL providing clinics when the team arrives in Melbourne.

Support from the Melbourne end looks promising, with the Melbourne Jewish community having a long history of support for Aussie Rules, as has more recently the Melbourne Arabic-speaking community.

A new initiative, which has enlisted big name sports identities including olympic gold medallists Ian Thorpe and Alisa Camplin and Tour de France cycling star Cadel Evans, Sport 4 the Environment, is aimed at helping Australian sports clubs and organisations to implement their own environmental policy.

Among them are two AFL stars representing the sport of Australian Football. The Collingwood Magpies' Shane Wakelin and Sydney Swan Brett Kirk are both now officially environmental ambassadors for the AFL.

A common criticism of the AFL for many years now has been the constant changing of rules and interpretations. Some see the changes as part of a hidden agenda to change the nature of the game, whilst others see it as a necessary reaction to the rapid evolution of the sport as it entered the fully professional era. There's no doubt that coaches are always looking to exploit loopholes and where the game deteriorates as a result, the lawmakers do need to react.

But it's clear that fans and players and been increasingly frustrated by the pace of change so it will be some relief to read on the AFL website that there will be "No major changes in rules for 2008".

The article reports that "the AFL Commission on Friday approved a recommendation from the Laws of the Game Committee that 2008 would be a season of consolidation for the game's laws, with no major changes to be implemented".

This is of course relevant to international footy, as most changes ultimately filter out to leagues around the world, as well as down through the levels in Australia.

Perhaps the one criticism to come out of the decision is that the controversial hands in the back interpretation has been maintained. Unpopular almost universally, it is set to stay in 2008, with the AFL's analysis apparently showing it was generally applied appropriately and improved the spectacle of the sport.

With the IC 2008 now less than a year away, 18 international teams are in active discussion with the AFL about taking part, with a further 3 Melbourne-based migrant community teams under consideration.

One of the big changes in the IC 2008 will be the division of the competition into "Premier" and "Developmental" divisions, pitting the more established sides against each other, while giving the newer teams on the block a fairer playing field.

While nothing is yet finalised, discussion between the AFL and international leagues is slowly creating a likely picture of who'll end up in which division.

The West London Wildcats will be the first BARFL club to launch a regular-season juniors team next year, with the Wildcats planning to enter an under-16s team in a new London junior league organised by Aussie Rules UK.

As it stands, the Wildcats will be joined by five school teams from around the London area, with the league to be played under full-contact rules with boys in the age range of 14-16, first bounce to be April next year. The Wildcats' main source of junior talent is via Featherstone High School in Ealing, who are connected with another 30 primary and 16 secondary schools in the area who are interested in running pograms.

Although no other BARFL clubs have entered a team so far, Wildcats stalwart Matt Glynn explains that the plan for the first season may see some of the schools being aligned with other BARFL clubs, with a view to them entering their own teams in future.

The British Bulldogs have shown themselves to be greatly improved and are widely tipped to be a force at the upcoming International Cup, however most clubs still find recruiting of local players a challenge. With pathways for junior talent to develop, the next few years may see British footy take a sizeable leap forward.