World Footy News

Aussie Rules in Samoa is back and set to resume its competitions and programs in 2007 after a very quiet 2006. Despite seemingly dropping of the radar after the Samoan team competed at the 2005 International Cup, the growing interest in the game has remained and the newly named AFL Samoa (formerly SARFA) is keen to get senior and high school competitions underway.

The arrival of AFL Samoa National Development Officer Michael Roberts has assisted the organization in Developing Programs and creating opportunities for all Samoans to try 'Aussie Rules' football.

The 2008 International Cup is now less than 18 months away (assuming an August 2008 date). This might seem like a long time to fans but supporters outside of Melbourne might want to start considering now whether they'll take a trip to Victoria's capital for the event. More importantly it means league administrators around the world will need to finalise whether their country will attend and start drawing up plans for getting around forty players and officials Down Under. Making sure players are available and sufficient funds are in place are two of the biggest issues. With AFL General Manager of National and International Development, David Matthews, recently speculating that as many as 20 nations may attend, we've looked at all the possible countries and rated the likelihood that they will be in Melbourne in 2008.

The prospect of Australian sport, including both footy and cricket becoming popular in Uganda, a country in East Africa, is a topic explored by this interesting article written by Mark Heath "Australian Sport, raising spirits in a remote East African Village" at Dave's Travel Corner.

In 2006, without a Sherrin handy, Mark apparently introduced Ugandan children from a rural village to the concepts of Australian rules football by way of a tightly packed newspaper strapped with some flexible reeds and it has apparently proven popular. He says he plans to return in future with the real pigskin.

Ontario has proven fertile ground for expansion sides this winter and encouragingly enough, they’re all well outside the Toronto area, the hotbed of Canadian footy. There’s the Ottawa Swans in the Nation’s capital, the Cambridge Warriors in the Kitchener/Waterloo area (watch for an article on them in a few weeks) and a third side in the city of London, nicknamed the London Stallions. Home to the University of Western Ontario, the city of 335 thousand is located about 2 hour’s drive southwest of Toronto. If London sounds familiar footy-wise, that’s because a previous side, the London Magpies, went under after the 2005 season. The Pies struggled on and off the field having trouble fielding a side for their final few matches before missing the playoffs and folding.

The USAFL and the Louisville Kings Football Club today confirmed that Louisville, Kentucky will indeed be the host city for the 2007 USAFL National Championships on the weekend of October 13th and 14th, 2007. As reported earlier the rumours had been strong that this would be the case, and the claim had earlier been posted on the Louisville website before being withdrawn.

Like the Lund Bulldogs who briefly appeared in the mid-90s, the Lund Magpies have struggled with both playing numbers and off-field issues in their history, difficulties with finding a field meaning they never even got to play a home match inside the city of Lund.  The Magpies recently announced they would fold for this season, but nearby Landskrona will see a strengthened Bulldozers side playing as a self-sufficient entity in the Scania league this year. Further north, the Karlstad Dragons are Sweden's newest team, and the first in the region of Värmland. One of the Dragons' founders, Jörg Pareigis, talks to WFN about the club's development so far.

Over the past few months, WFN has run two stories on the promising possibilities for Aussie Rules in Dubai. The first article, Dubai tries to get footy moving in the Middle East was about the city's newly formed football club, the Dingoes. The second, AFL match on the go for Dubai, spoke about an upcoming football match in Dubai, between AFL clubs Collingwood and Adelaide (scheduled for early 2008).  Football in Dubai even made their local news, with Gulf News publishing an article on the Dingoes' story, although disappointingly, it was placed under the heading of rugby.  Now the Dubai 9s tournament is on its way, with teams from Dubai, Oman and Qatar among those hoping to attend.

Game three of the 2007 Convicts tour of South Africa saw the touring Aussies lose their first ever match under the Convicts concept, going down by seven points in one of the country's spiritual hearts - Soweto. Although the Australians were hampered by injuries, it sounds clear that the Africans have improved significantly and one must now wonder whether they will threaten the top group at the 2008 International Cup.

Aussie Rules fans around the world can now get a weekly dose of AFL gossip and news presented in a humourous style on Youtube.  Footy Wrap is the brainchild of director and comedian Jeff Wortman, who teams up with Paul Hogan (not the one of Crocodile Dundee fame).  The duo write and film their show from converted warehouse space in Fitzroy each week.  Several episodes have already appeared on Youtube and WFN thought the light entertainment might be of interest to our audience and the the Footy Wrap guys were happy to hear they might be getting an expanded international following.

Posted on behalf of WFN writer Aaron.

Croatia's Zagreb Hawks will play host to the West London Wildcats on March 31st this year, with the Wildcats venturing to eastern Europe for the first time after recent years saw them take on sides in Denmark, Sweden and Barcelona as pre-season warm-ups. The match will be held in the city of Split, where organisers hope a new team can be created in the near future.

The Convicts squad has completed its three matches in South Africa, knocking off the strongest province, North West, in two matches. Early reports suggest their task then proved too difficult in Soweto, going down narrowly to the South African national side. This would be the first loss by a Convicts team - at first glance no cause for excitement amongst the Australian players but surely a good sign for the international growth of Australian Football. Tour leader Anthony Nanfra has sent WFN details of the first two matches (the final match report to follow later), as well as preliminary plans to travel to the US and Canada later in the year.

In more exciting news for "Rules" in Papua New Guinea, four PNG players have been included in a 27 man country Queensland talent squad - Ali Pinda, Stanis Susave, John Vincent and John James.  A record ten PNG players were invited to the U18 country Kookaburras selection trials in Rockhampton, with those missing out on the final selection including Bergman Talingapua, Lewis Reu, Willie Aisi, Phenam Sioni, Moses Tibong and Raphael Gotuno.