World Footy News

After months of planning, the French footy scene has finally officially affiliated with the Léo Lagrange National Sports Union, creating the Commission National de Football Australien. Léo Lagrange is an organisation representing over 100 different sports in France, with over 400 member clubs, 50,000 individual members and an emphasis on youth involvement.

This year, the juggernaut that is the Asian Australian Football Championships rolls into Bangkok, home of the Thailand Tigers - hosts for 2007. The tournament has been scheduled a little earlier than usual this year for the weekend of July 14th, a fact that has seen many of the Aussie Rules teams of Asia, including four of the region's powerhouse teams, dust their boots off and blow the preseason cobwebs out with early match practise to get season 2007 underway.

One of the ongoing complaints of Aussie Rules fans outside of Australia is the lack of access to watching AFL matches. Although the AFL website offers video streaming of games there have been plenty of people unhappy with its reliability and image quality. The dream for many supporters has been to get coverage on readily accessible cable/satellite television in their country. AFANA has long been at the forefront of pushing for this in North America and in 2006 the efforts of the Setanta network were generally well received. Now 2007 looks like a great advance, with Setanta locked in to AFL coverage through to 2011, adding unprecedented certainty. The network are also offering more live games and extending the service to Ireland and the United Kingdom in a move that can only assist the profile of the game.

The 2007 AFL season has opened with the second best minor round attendance in the history of the VFL/AFL. With 364,544 people attending the eight games in round one, the average was 45,568 per match, a great turnout across the nation. The biggest show was the re-match of last year's Grand Final blockbuster between West Coast and Sydney. Such matches are often described as "replays" of the Grand Final, and this one certainly turned out that way with the Eagles again home by just one point - the third successive one point result between the two clubs. With 62,586 fans in to watch the match, it was the highest minor round attendance between two non-Victorian sides. Obviously such a record is made possible by Sydney's Telstra Stadium having a greater capacity than any other footy stadium outside of Melbourne, but it still stands as a great sign for Australian Football's continued growth in New South Wales, the country's most populous state.

For our international readers, Australia is currently struggling with a severe drought which while it has had devasting economic consequences for the whole nation, areas outside the major cities have been particularly hard-hit by the loss of both income from agriculture and young people who migrate to the state capitals for work.

Another outcome of the drought is the slow collapse of water supply, both in the major cities and the country, where water restrictions have meant that many sports grounds are turning to dustbowls over summer.

With an ever-increasing number of sports grounds off-limits due to a lack of any grass cover, a new website has recently been launched under the title SaveFooty.com - where money is being raised to install rainwater tanks and encourage the use of recycled water on sports field. While the site is currently based around Aussie Rules clubs, rugby league, rugby union and soccer clubs are also intended to benefit from the charitable actions to save grass-roots footy from the drought.

In November last year, a representative Under 15 Pancawati side from the West Java Australian Football League (WeJAFL) hosted a Jakarta based British International School Under 15 team. Excitingly, this was the first time that the BIS kids had played a game of Aussie Rules. Even so though, the BIS squad gave the WeJAFL team a run for their money in a nail biting clash. A full match report by Robert Baldwin of the WeJAFL can be seen here on the Jakarta Bintangs website.

In another article posted on the Jakarta Bintang website, From Little Things, Big Things Grow: Banda Aceh Bandits AFC, veteran Bintang, Matt Stephens, takes a humorous look at the tentative first steps of a couple of the Aussie Rules faithful as they attempt to establish a new Australian Football Club in the devastated Indonesian province of Banda Aceh.

In a positive move for Australian football in the Pacific, the NZAFL website reports that a new Chief Executive Officer has been appointed to oversee the growth of the sport in New Zealand.

Robert Vanstam, a former Queensland State representative and a member of the coaching staff that led the NZ Falcons to their 2005 International Cup win, will take over the position vacated by Rob Malone. He has a background in business administration and operations management, and has identified player development pathways as a key priority for NZAFL to put in place. (Editor: The appointment followed a disturbing period in which the position was vacant leading to concerns about the game's direction in NZ).

Further positive news in New Zealand concerns a report that SKY Sports will continue to televise Australian football in 2007. Details are yet to be confirmed, but early indications are that as many as four games may be televised in full per week, in addition to the weekly highlights package currently on air.

For more details, visit www.nzafl.co.nz

As this month’s Dubai 9s approach, ARI and the Dubai Dingoes have released the schedule for matches and other events on the day. There has also been a slight alteration to the teams that will be attending, now including five squads from around the city of Dubai, one from Doha (Qatar) and a combined squad from Oman and Abu Dhabi.

Details for Scotland's VB Haggis Cup have been finalised with six teams fronting up for the Glasgow tournament. The 2007 event will feature sides from Scotland, England, the Republic of Ireland and a combined Brussels/Strasbourg team.

Melbourne daily newspaper the Herald Sun reported on Sunday, 25 March that Ms. Abbe Land, mayor of California's 'busiest precinct' and Democratic senate candidate for California, will be at the MCG on Saturday.

Apparently the Roos have been adopted by Hollywood business leaders since they played the G'Day LA match in 2005 and they, like Dean Laidley, want the team to return in January.

Rumour has it that if they don't return the Socceroos will play a game there instead against an MLS side, possibly including David Beckham - although our sources tell us that the NRL wanted to do the same this year and were rejected as the AFL said they were still interested in future matches.