Welcome to World Footy News Friday, September 27 2024 @ 08:56 pm ACST
 | In a promising sign that Setanta Sports will be putting in significant efforts to promote Australian Football on its sports channels, last week they had Miss Ireland turn out for a photo shoot with the lads from some of the Dublin Aussie Rules teams. If the blonde beauty doesn't attract attention to the great game nothing will. |
 | On Easter Monday, participants in the Washington DC USFooty Kids /Auskick program and their families spent the morning on the South Lawn at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. The theme of this year's Easter Egg Roll was childhood obesity, physical activity and fitness (which my wife thought was very funny given the amount of chocolate on hand for the kids). |
 | As if growing a new sport in a developing nation wasn't difficult enough, 2006 saw the Tonga Australian Football Association have a run of misfortune that impeded several of their major projects. Incidents such as the passing of members of the Royal family and civil unrest prevented an adults league from progressing and ultimately saw the cancellation of all sport in the Kingdom. However a lot of ground work was laid for programs ranging from youngsters through to the seniors, as well as obtaining AFL affiliation. Tonga's AYAD Development Officer Michael Russell is looking forward to a big 2007, including the commencement of fundraising with an eye on the 2008 International Cup. |
 | Aussie Rules has been played in Argentina since 1997, but news from the country has been somewhat hard to come by. Ricardo Acuña has been a driving force in developing the game through the country's alternative sports organisations and his program is still continuing, through a small league known as the AAFAu. Brian Dixon also visited the country last year and established another contact for footy in the country. WFN recently spoke with Acuña about the state of play with the AAFAu, as well as with the AFL about Dixon's new point of contact. |
(Alexandria, VA) In the shadow of the George Washington Masonic Temple here in Alexandria, Virginia, and with the snow melting on the George Washington Middle School Football field, 20 to 30 young men and women are out trying their hand at Ausball. It is a cold Easter Saturday morning but those brave souls willing to get out of bed are excited to put the footy boots on, kick some goals and have some fun. Ausball, is a version of "Rec Footy", developed for the US. It is a 9-a-side game played on a smaller oval (100 yards in length) with no tackling and various rules to encourage coed participation. According to the Eagles website, "No previous experience is necessary. Just some running clothes, maybe a pair of cleats or sneakers and plenty of enthusiasm."
The Vienna Kangaroos have announced they will host the 4th Central European AFL Championships on Saturday 9th June, 2007. The CEAFL tournament has run every year since 2003, pausing only for the EU Cup in 2005, and has traditionally been a chance for countries with only one club or European leagues not yet at the stage of fielding an International Cup side to get a game against regional competitors. This year the format will be 9-a-side with one representative team allowed from each country. At least four countries in Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Finland are committed so far.
Further north, the year's second all-Europe 9-a-side championship, the EU Cup, is scheduled for September, hosted by the Hamburg Dockers. The tournament will be the second EU Cup, the first being held in London late 2005 and last year's tournament in France being cancelled.
The much anticipated Aussie Rules debut of Sedgars Park, Potchefstroom, is almost here, as the Australian under 17s head to South Africa for the historic match on April 14th. The international, along with the warm-up trial for the touring squad, will be the first games at the cricket ground and hopefully the oval will come through the matches in good condition. AFL South Africa are also planning to use the day to officially launch "FootyWild", billed as "The New Game That Roars".
Here are a few snippets of footy info from around the web over the past few weeks, with signs of increasing professionalism in South Africa, Jason Akermanis again pushing the AFL to embrace Japan, and Essendon translating part of their website into Japanese.
 | US Footy’s Australian Advisory Board Executive Director, Tony Fairhead, recently managed to have students from Saint John’s University, Minnesota, who are studying at the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle taught a little bit about Aussie Rules, including playing games. |
Ireland's GAA is talking tough in the lead up to negotiations to restart the International Rules series between Australia and Ireland. All the indications are that the Irish want major rule changes and won't proceed without them.
As reported in the Irish Independent:
GAA President Nicky Brennan has revealed that efforts are underway to revive the International Rules series with Australia, just months after it was shelved. The Irish management team, led by Seán Boylan, met recently to draw up a number of issues which they feel need to be addressed if the series is to have a future. And Brennan said that further feedback had been received from the players involved in the controversial Autumn series with the Australians.
World Footy News proudly announces the inaugural USFooty Top 10 Poll. WFN
has recruited ten of the brightest minds in USFooty to vote on their Top 10
USFooty teams and then has aggregated the votes. We plan to have six more
polls during the season concluding after USFooty Nationals on October
13-14. WFN will announce the winner of the USFooty Poll Premiership on
October 1. The honor will go to the team voted Number 1 based on its 2007
regular season games.
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