For a bit of festive fun we have for your viewing pleasure a recent Fosters beer commercial from the UK with a cameo appearance by the Sherrin, reinforcing the global association of Aussie Rules football and Australia. Seasons greeting to you all.

The World Footy News / Cam Homes World Rankings stirred debate at various stages, including requests for 9-a-side footy to be included. Ultimately the consensus appeared to be to exclude such matches from a "full-scale" football ranking scheme. It was also suggested to create a separate 9-a-side ranking. We shied away from that on several grounds such as the additional effort but primarily on the basis that there is very little international competition in terms of national sides competing in 9-a-side outside of Europe. And even within Europe there has very often been hybrid eligibility rules with plenty of expat Aussies, although in some cases with a handicap system applied.

However, leading up to the 9-a-side 2010 European Cup, run under the auspices of the European Australian Football Association, primary organiser Philip Porublev approached worldfootynews.com to compile a Europe 9-a-side rankings to help with seedings for the tournament.

The University of Birmingham Sharks played two fixtures in late November against Britain's oldest Australian rules teams - the prestigious universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

On November 13th, the Sharks took on Cambridge in a 9-a-side match, with Birmingham's 15 British locals defeating Cambridge's all-Australian squad by 13 points.

The following weekend saw Birmingham Uni take on Oxford, in the Sharks' first-ever 18-a-side match. On the wide open spaces of Oxford Uni's full-sized ground, the Sharks were outclassed but not disgraced, going down by 58 points, 14.8 (92) to 5.4 (34).

The extreme cold and huge snowfalls of the northern winter unfortunately saw the cancellation of the Uni of Birmingham's third Aussie rules match of the season, which was planned against the Leeds Metropolitan Uni Chiefs. However, the season is scheduled to recommence in late January with a clash against the Chiefs and another against the University of Chichester Cougars.

The following report is courtesy of Dave Wheaton and first appeared in the University of Birmingham's student newspaper, The Redbrick.

The European footy community is to host some of Australia's best young footballing talent next year, with the elite Australian Institute of Sport-Australian Football League Academy to tour.

In the past few years, the AIS-AFL squad have focussed on touring Ireland and South Africa, with a number of matches against the South African Lions.

The AIS-AFL squad will take on a European representative side, featuring local players from up to seventeen nations, in a match in London. They will also visit the brand new triple-level European Training Centre, which is due to open this December, in the Italian town of Gavirate in the province of Varese.

The tour will conclude with a visit to Gallipoli for ANZAC Day.

We'll have more information on the preparations of the European side in the near future, but in the meantime see AIS-AFL Academy to make European trip in 2011 for more details.

Swans defender Tadhg Kennelly has had knee surgery today. Kennelly twisted his knee in a training mishap in Ireland last week and immediately returned to Australia for assessment.

While many readers may find it unusual that an AFL player is doing this sort of unsupervised training - and in fact some players have contracts that forbid this sort of thing - it is quite common for Irish players to not only train while in Ireland but to compete in Gaelic football matches in the offseason.

Collingwood today officially listed Irishman Paul Cribbin of County Kildare with pick 81 in the Rookie Draft. Cribbin has been training with the club for some weeks after signing a two year contract with the 2010 Premiers earlier this year.

Despite rumors of the return of Cribbin's countryman Marty Clarke to Collingwood through the year this has not eventuated. But the club and Clarke have left the door open for it to possibly happen in the 2012 season.

At this time of year, Aussie Rules clubs the world over are getting back into off-season training. Major AFL Clubs take the opportunity to use this time to go abroad and hone themselves in different environments, Collingwood go to Colorado to work at altitude, this year North Melbourne went to the colder climate of Utah and Richmond are currently in New Zealand working on fitness and team building via some extreme sports.

This weekend’s weather in Scotland afforded the Glasgow Sharks the chance to train in some unusual conditions as well. With at least 4 inches of Snow covering the Sharks regular training venue at Glasgow Green, this Sunday’s session was less ball work and more snowball work!!

On Saturday November 20th, the Toulouse Crocodiles hosted four other teams from around Spain and France for the 2010 Mediterranean Cup.

The tournament saw the debut of the Marseille Dockers, who clashed with Toulouse, the Perpignan Tigers, the Bordeaux Bombers and Spanish side the Madrid Bears.

The sides met each other once each over the course of an intense day's play, with the home town Crocs finishing undefeated. Second place went to the Bordeaux Bombers, with the Madrid Bears taking out third.

Marseille achieved a win over Perpignan, finishing with a 1-3 record from their first-ever outing.

For more information on footy in France, see FootballAustralien.com.

With the European summer well and truly behind us, WFN takes a look at who took out the silverware in the domestic leagues across Europe.

In our first installment, we'll look at the AFL London, the leagues around regional England, Scotland and Wales.

Australian sports news and opinion website The Roar today ran a story profiling Sam Stranks, an Adelaide native who received Oxford University's prestigious Rhodes Scholarship and has now become the Uni's Aussie Rules captain.

The article describes Stranks' background in the SANFL, as well as the growing collegiate footy scene in England, where Chichester and Birmingham have recently joined Oxford and Cambridge to make a university Aussie Rules season a reality.

The full article can be read at Sam Stranks Oxford University Aussie Rules Captain.