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.

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.

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.

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.

Just a quick note to let fans know that the Australian Rules Football League Ireland and British Australian Rules Football League websites are back up and running after extended downtime during the off-season.

The GAA may have put the International Rules series into deep freeze, but former GAA stars in the AFL are running hot in pre-season training. We have a look at the form of the O'hAilpin brothers (and point you to a great documentary on the family), and draw attention to several recent media reports on the other members of the Irish invasion.

Late last year we reported on a proposed new league by Aussie Rules UK to be run in British population centres away from London. The ARUK league was designed to use smaller player numbers and groupings in smaller regions. This aimed to address some of the complaints levelled at the British Australian Rules Football League, but it appeared it would also be run partially in competition with the BARFL's Regional League. Some of the teams listed by ARUK were indeed BARFL sides so the UK Australian Football scene was clearly in for an interesting off-season as clubs faced a big decision. It has been two months since we last looked at this issue so WFN contacted the existing and proposed new clubs to ask them how their preparations for 2007 have been going and which league they intend playing in. We've also discussed some of the problems faced by regional clubs in the past, how the BARFL has or hasn't dealt with such issues, and how planning for the inaugural ARUK season is progressing.

Eddie McAvinchey reports from the SARFL on last year's season of solid progress and anticipation of further growth in 2007:

Scotland looks ahead to exciting 2007

by Eddie McAvinchey of SARFL

With Collingwood forming a sister relationship with the Glasgow Magpies (formerly Glasgow Redbacks) the Scottish Australian Football League (SARFL) has started the year with a blast and is looking forward to a lively 2007. The 2006 season proved a bit of a watershed for the game in Scotland, with an expanded 5-team league structure, a further successful staging of the pre-season Scottish Cup, and the entrance of a new, second team in Glasgow.

A few concerned readers have contacted us wondering if there are any major concerns behind the current downtime of the Australian Rules Football League Ireland and British Australian Rules Football League websites (you'll be tempted to click on them anyway since they're hyperlinked). WFN has been in contact with the webmasters of both sites and have been assured that these are just the usual website/webhost glitches experienced by many websites and they hope to be back up and running soon.

We may as well take this opportunity to thank Ripefruit for the excellent service they provide us with here at WFN.