World Footy News

On October 16th, Ontario AFL Grand Final day, the touring Convicts side took on a slightly depleted Canada squad as a curtain-raiser and valuable match practice for the Northwind. After the Convicts concept had its first international loss earlier this year (when an injury riddled team went down to South Africa in Soweto), the Aussies bounced back with AFL legend Kevin Sheedy looking on. The following report is courtesy of the Convicts' Anthony Nanfra. Apologies for the delay as we were (unsuccessfully) attempting to gather Canada best player and goalkicker information.

The Denmark Vikings played a practise match yesterday against the DAFL All-Stars, with the All-Stars featuring the best Australians from the Danish league - and a special guest in Brownlow medallist Jimmy Bartel. Despite the highest-profile ring-in ever in Danish footy, the All-Stars went down to the Vikings quite convincingly - the Vikings winning 9.11.65 to 2.7.19.

The match was held after the DAFL's AGM, which saw Ian Hill become the new president, Jens Alsted Hansen vice-president, Ingmar "Terry" Lundquist secretary and Erik Krolmark treasurer. The biggest change will be the expansion of the Premier League to 7 sides, with the Vikings sets to compete as a stand-alone team in preparation for the International Cup.

After considering the question of fielding a second Premier League team for a number of years, Farum have compromised by allowing the national team (made up of around 50% Farum players) to join for the coming season. The Cats will continue to be repesented by Farum's Australian players and their next crop of young Danish players not in the main Vikings squad. It is hoped that for 2009 and beyond, the second Farum team will continue to participate in DAFL in its own right.

Full scores and stats for the Vikings vs Allstars match available at the Footy Record.

First of all don't get too excited - there isn't a new professional Aussie Rules international satellite network. worldfootynews.com is building a World Footy Channel on YouTube. There's a lot of good Australian Football footage available on YouTube courtesy of individuals, and we've joined in. It's a work in progress, so we're not sure yet how this will turn out, be it hosted through this site or directly on YouTube. Hopefully we can host our own material and also draw attention to some of the other excellent video out there.

We've had some major issues along the way, not least of which was finding the time, but finally we're uploading some of our footage from the 2005 Australian Football International Cup. Check it out on our World Footy Channel.

worldfootynews.com is pleased to release its new page listing most of the AFL players recruited from overseas to play in Australia (such as the many Irish recruits) as well as some of the notable overseas born players who have grown up in Australia and become stars of our great game. Although several months in the making, the list is by no means exhaustive, as Australia is very much a country of migrants, and hundreds of players in the AFL and indeed in the state leagues (VFL, SANFL, WAFL etc) were born outside of Australia.

Our list is: International Players in Australia

Aussie Nathan Sawicki, a member of the Finland AFL, featured on the front page of The Saturday Age's employment section this weekend. We're pretty sure that's him in the Carlton jumper, we're guessing the man to his left sporting the Finland Icebreakers jumper is a local.

The article inside mainly talks about Sawicki's life as an expatriate Australian in Finland and the employment and study chances for Aussies in the Scandinavian nation - with a small mention of the growing Aussie Rules (and rugby and cricket) scene.

The profile of international footy has beefed up considerably in the past 12 months in the Melbourne media. While it still gets written off by a large percentage of the public, the "cultural cringe" seems to be fading a bit, helped along by growing realisation about things like the AFL South Africa programs and the Demons' China project.

If anyone from Finland wants to provide details on the exact identity of the player in the photo, feel free to leave a comment on this article!

The General Manager of the Western Australian Country Football League, Cameron Knapton, and Vice President, Terry House, traveled to the US for the USFooty Nationals in mid-October. After being approached by USFooty’s Tony Fairhead, Knapton became convinced that the US provided a great opportunity for WA Country and decided to take the trip to find out more, talk to USFooty about partnering and promote programs already in place.

Knapton was amazed at the size of footy in the US. He organizes the WA Country Carnival, which he believes is the largest footy carnival of its type in Australia - but Knapton was very surprised to learn that the USFooty Nationals is 30% larger than the WA Country carnival.

The Thailand Tigers, Vietnam Swans and Lao Elephants will play a three-way tournament on November 17th at the United Nations School in Hanoi.

The footy will kick off at 12.30pm, with three matches pitting each of the teams against one another. The tournament will be the international debut for the Elephants who only formed in April 2007. The boys from Laos are reportedly very excited to be pulling on the pink and grey for the first time.

The tri-nations will also feature the Netball girls who will play from 11am - including the international debut of the Lao Mahoots netball side.

As strange as it first sounds, the New Zealand Australian Football League (NZAFL) wants to play in the Charles Perkins National Aboriginal Football Championships in Australia! NZ attended the Australian Country Football Championships on the Gold Coast during 2006 and played the Aboriginal All-Stars there. The result was a pasting, as the ex-Brisbane Lion Darryl White lead his team to a resounding thumping. However NZAFL CEO Robert Vanstam has revealed that he wants to send a team to play at the carnival and will explore that possibility with the organisers of the next event.

The Wellington AFL season is due to commence on Sunday 4th November. The recent NZ National Provincial Championship tournament, held in the capital, saw the Wellington team win matches against Canterbury and Waikato and lose to the Auckland outfit by 7 points.

The NPC has proven to be an excellent springboard into the forthcoming season. The competition has struggled a little in recent times to have four committed and competitive teams, along with a central committee who have perhaps not always offered the inclusive and respected leadership required. Now read on and look at the positive outlook for each Club as provided to WFN.

In some exciting news for raising the profile of International Footy at a 'grass roots' level in Melbourne, the AFL has invited VAFA clubs to 'host' International Cup teams during the period of the 2008 International Cup. The VAFA has forwarded to club secretaries an invitation to become involved. The 'hosting' is envisaged to include sharing ideas, perhaps running a training session and a social function.

The 2007 AFL PNG Junior National Championships were held at Igam Barracks, Lae over the period 24 September - 28 September 2007. The Championships were a huge success with over 400 children attending from across PNG. They came from the Islands by Boat, the highlands by PMV and Port Moresby by plane. The accommodation, catering and playing facilities were all given the thumbs up by the children. Even the rain and slippery ovals could not dampen their enthusiasm. Igam Barracks was viewed as a wonderful place to hold such a prestigious event and during the Championships the participants had a visit from the Commander PNGDF Commodore P. Ilau. The Commodore expressed his support for the Championships at Igam and was suitably impressed by the organisation and discipline of such a large number of well-behaved young Papua New Guineans.

2007 has been a year of anniversaries in international footy. The sport has unquestionably put down some solid roots in a number of countries, whereas a decade or two past, plenty of leagues were only the loss of one or two key people away from disappearing.

The USAFL has celebrated its 10th anniversary, including a celebration at the Nationals in Kentucky which saw the naming of their team of the first decade. Their Ten Year Commemorative Book is available here.

The Japan AFL has brought up their 20th year in the game.

In September AFL South Africa (formerly Footy South Africa) joined the milestone group, also bringing up 10 years since development began in the North West Province. According to AFL South Africa North West Provincial Manager July Machethe, "It was at this month back in 1997 that AFL was introduced to the North West community and since then the game has developed and produced immeasurable results. We’ve experienced AFL South Africa and AFL North West teams participating in the two editions of the International Cup in 2002 and 2005, The Jim Stynes Cup (now Ron Barassi Youth Tournament) in 1997 and 2006 with the under 16 kids participating. We also have experienced a great cultural exchange, skills and love of “Our Game” between Australians and South Africans since the introduction of the game back in 1997".

"A lot has happened and more big things to come… I should mention the great support and courage to take the game to the next level by the AFL body (in Australia) without them it will have been impossible for us to reach this stage. Them bringing in the Fremantle Football Club to the North West is a great boost and we are going to do well together with the Dockers! Words of Appreciation also goes to the North West Department of Sports Arts & Culture!!!".