The German state of Baden-Württemberg, located in the country's south-west, has been represented in the AFLG by the Stuttgart Emus for a number of years now. Besides the Emus however, there are also a number of regional towns where interested German and Australian footy fanatics are working on the creation of new clubs, with the possibility that this year may see a local league start play.

The most active of the regional teams are the Taipans, founded in the medium-sized city of Ludwigsburg around 15km north of Stuttgart. Ludwigsburg has been home to a number of Stuttgart Emus players over the past few years, including local Kevin Kilger and Aussie expat Chris Robertson, a native of Williamstown in Melbourne's inner-west who has played with the Emus since 2009 and coached them in the second half of the 2011 season.

A new club on the German scene will enter regular play this year, with long time Rheinland Lions stalwart Chris Odenthal having built up a club in the eastern city of Dresden over the past 10 months.

Chris played seven seasons with the Rheinland Lions and has also represented the German Black Eagles on the European stage - now he's hoping to apply his experience to a new club.

LEFT: The Dresden Wolves in 2012 (wearing old Düsseldorf Lions jumpers until their own arrive)

The DAFL community is in mourning following the death of one of the pioneers of Australian football in Denmark, Mark Zaga, who passed away aged 51 on the weekend after a brief illness.

Mark, whose full surname was Zagodinos but was generally shortened to Zaga, was a key personality in the DAFL's beginnings in the early 90s, when the league was just coming together and games were played at the public park at Fælledparken.

He coached the Amager Tigers to premierships in 1992, 1993 and 1995 and among the players of that club at the time his popularity was legendary, a fact confirmed by the messages of respect on the DAFL and Amager facebook pages. He won the hearts of a lot of young Danish players and convinced them that footy really was the greatest game on the planet.

Mark went on to be the president of the DAFL in 1996 and 1997 at a time when almost no-one took on the thankless task for more than one year. He was also the coach of the first DAFL representative team to play outside Denmark - against Great Britain in London in 1994.

After his involvement in DAFL, Mark was very successful in the hair care industry in Denmark.

The writing staff at worldfootynews.com join members of the DAFL in extending our sympathies to Mark's family at this very sad time.

Australian sport is currently reeling from the shock revelations by the Australian Crime Commission that they believe performance-enhancing drug taking is widespread in Australia's major sporting codes - although this report is now starting to be criticised as making all sportspeople look bad whilst not actually naming any names or clubs.

A humorous twist to this is that the story has been picked up by a Danish media outlet which is using a photo of an Australian football player with the story - however rather than be an AFL player they've used a picture of Irish international John "Dingo" Enright, a member of the Warriors' victorious 2011 International Cup team.  You can imagine the shock for Enright to suddenly be the one man chosen to "represent" Australian football, but with the accompanying doping issues the story reports on.  Probably not the kind of fame he anticipated when first taking up the sport.

Article here, and (very poorly) translated article here.

Australian wine makers Jacob's Creek have been running an advertising campaign known as the True Character Series.  The latest sportsman to be featured is Tadgh Kennelly and the story of his family and football across two codes.  The video can be seen below.

Kennelly is currently in Dublin and tomorrow will lead the two-day AFL Europe combine being held in Dublin, Ireland.

[youtube:CbR2Orj01vk]

While the football season in most countries has not started yet, in France the domestic season is conducted over the northern winter, and the month of February marks the halfway point of the season. That makes this time of year perfect to review the teams' standing.

In the 4-team Super League, the Bordeaux Bombers are hot favourites after their great 2011-2012 season which saw them winning every possible title. The Paris Cockerels and Toulouse Hawks are determined to regain some of their titles lost to the Bombers, while the Strasbourg Kangourous are hoping to avoid the wooden spoon two years in a row.

In the first round, the Cockerels were no match for their old rival from the east, defeating the Kangourous 168-64. The other game of the day, between the Bombers and the Hawks, had to be postponed due to the pitch being flooded after heavy rains in Toulouse. Bordeaux eventually got the win in the replay, 98-68. The second day of game saw Toulouse easily dispose of Strasbourg (116-36) seriously reducing Strasbourg's chances of a better season.

In Paris, the Bombers and the Cockerels fought hard for the top stop on the ladder, but the Bombers got away with a narrow win (66-62) putting them in an excellent position for the title. For the last games of 2012, Bordeaux hosted a diminished Strasbourg side and easily won, 158-24 and in a repeat of the first game day, Paris had to cancel its travel plan to Toulouse after the pitch was closed due to flooding. The Hawks-Cockerels game has been rescheduled to April.

The Greater Western Sydney Giants have offered an international scholarship to young Danish AFL player Aksel Bang, who will visit Sydney to train and play with the Giants this year.

The 21 year-old is about to start six months national service with the Danish army in Afghanistan and will travel to Sydney during his scheduled break in April/May. He took up the game two years ago after visiting Australia and now plays for the Aalborg Kangaroos and Danish Vikings and was the leading player in last year's Euro Cup.

Giants Chief Executive David Matthews said it was a great opportunity further develop talent from overseas. He said Bang would train with the club and also play in the GWS Giants in the NEAFL.

“AFL Europe has a done a lot of work building the code across the continent and we think Aksel is deserving of an opportunity to further his skills and education in the game," Matthews said.

Australian Rules football has continued to show positive growth in many ways throughout Europe, one of which is the development of new clubs in leagues in France, Finland and Ireland. Over coming weeks, World Footy News will bring more detailed stories of these clubs to readers. But this small overview will still be of interest to those keen to see continued development and growth in Europe.

The Croatian Knights have announced that Richmond AFL star Ivan Marić has proudly accepted their offer to become ambassador for the Croatian national Australian rules football side.

One of the best-known AFL players from a Croatian family background, Ivan began his career in the Adelaide Crows before moving to the Tigers, and is described to Croatian audiences on the FootyCroatia website as being known for his strong and courageous "old school" playing style.

The Croatian community in Australia has produced many AFL stars, including Alan Didak, brothers Glen and Allen Jakovich, Peter Sumich, Matthew Pavlich, Darren Gaspar and Jon Dorotich to name just a few. They have also made a huge impression in other Australian sporting fields, including Andrew Bogut (basketball), Mark Bosnich (soccer) and Simon Katich (cricket). Famous actor and diehard St Kilda fan Eric Bana (real surname Banadinović) is also of Croatian background.

The Knights hope that Ivan's high-profile support will help them in their quest to debut at the International Cup in 2014.

As a new season of footy in France is underway it is time to look back at a very exciting 2011 - 2012 season. For the first time in its young history, the France championship was divided in two separate divisions; The Super League (Bordeaux, Paris, Toulouse and Strasbourg) ultimately competing for the national title and the Development League (Aix-Marseille, Perpignan and Montpellier) offering valuable game time to young or struggling teams.

This separation was decided at the end of the 2010-2011 season to ease the pressure of travel on less established teams. But even this new format proved to be a challenge for the teams in the Development League as 4 out of 6 games had to be cancelled due to a lack of players. At the end of the season, which ran from September 2011 to March 2012, the Montpellier Fire-Sharks took the title easily defeating Aix-Marseille (60-36).

On the other hand, the Super league proved to be a success, offering what is shaping up to be a great rivalry between the Bordeaux Bombers and the Paris Cockerels. Both teams started the competition as favourites, Bordeaux being the reigning champion and Paris holding on the 2011 French Cup.