Additional commentary, Brett Northey

After several informal releases, worldfootynews.com today publishes our first formal World Rankings since 18th May 2013.

There's been plenty of movement in the lower half courtesy of two new fully ranked nations, France (16th) and Croatia (11th).

France brought their game tally up to our minimum required eight matches with a big loss to Germany, while Croatia qualified during the recent 2013 European Championships in Dublin. Some may argue that a rank of 11th in the world flatters the Knights, possibly rightly, but their form in 9-a-side has been very impressive for some time. Hopefully we'll see them make their International Cup debut at IC14 and that should help settle them in to a spot they deserve, wherever that may be.

In many respects EC2013 was a series of dramatic twists and turns that left us right where we started. Ireland almost came crashing down three times, but didn't. Denmark almost got past Great Britain, but didn't. The Swedes pushed their near rivals but couldn't topple them. Croatia pushed Sweden but didn't get over the line, and Great Britain nearly claimed their first major international title, only to have Ireland snatch victory with the last kick of the tournament.

Major Australian bank NAB are looking for multilingual footy fans to broadcast the 2013 AFL Grand Final live in languages other than English.

As part of their "Footify" project to grow the game throughout Australia, they hope to have the Grand Final broadcast live in at least 10 different languages, and are looking for suitably skilled fans to apply to do the job.

If that sounds of interest to you (and presumably there are a fair number of WFN readers who might qualify) then all the information is available here!

Our unofficial World Rankings have been updated following day one of the European Championships in Dublin and the 49th Parallel Cup Match in Edmonton.

Read on to see the latest rankings.

The Bachar Houli Program, which provides mentoring, education and leadership sessions for students in Islamic schools, and the opportunity to play football and compete for the Bachar Houli Cup has received a grant of $156,000 from the Australian Government. The grant allows the program to continue for at least one more year.

The announcement was made last week by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Kate Lundy.

According to the AFL's Jason Mifsud, “the Bachar Houli Program engages 30 Islamic colleges nationally and more than 5000 participants annually. It plays an integral role in fostering greater cultural understanding and promoting social inclusion.”

The program is considered a great success and has been shortlisted for a Beyond Sport Award; which seek to find the best projects from around the world that use sport to address social issues within communities.

The World XVIII today completed a clean sweep of matches in their division of the NAB AFL Under-16 Championships kicking 25.13 to the Flying Boomerangs 5.3. The South Pacific team went down heavily to the WA Northwest team.

Yesterday the Victorian Country team defeated South Australia 9.8 to 8.12 to take the Division 1 title. NSW/ACT defeated Tasmania today to take out Division 2.

Division Two & Three results – Round Three matches played today at the Blacktown International Sportspark in Sydney.

World XVIII 25.13 (163)
Flying Boomerangs 5.3 (33)

GOALS
World XVIII: Sokoyi 5, McGivney 3, Paligorov 2, Kenny 2, Chol 2, Mamur 2, Kerbatieh, Aujla, Jok, Kassem, Kennedy, Moshoeshoe, Greyling, Mkhize, Sekori
Flying Boomerangs: Young 2, Hampton 2, Nelson

BEST
World XVIII: Kerbatieh, Aujla, Jok, Sokoyi, McGivney, El Moussalli
Flying Boomerangs: Gresham, Young, Davis, Wilkes, Powell-Pepper, Waterbury


WA North West 16.15 (111)
South Pacific 3.9 (27)

GOALS
WA North West: Birch 6, Lockyer, Djiagween, Petera, Gore, Curtain, Martin, Ah Chee, Shaw, Adams, Oakley
South Pacific: Savere, Clark, Tuvasi, Foilape

BEST
WA North West: Simons, Butler, Cox, Birch, Adams, Evans
South Pacific: Savere, B.Tirang, Riddell, Rai, Reti, J.Tirang, Ramo

The World XVIII won Division Three

 In an AFL first, the Western Bulldogs will live tweet in Vietnamese during this weekend’s afternoon clash against Essendon on Sunday - to mark AFL Multicultural Round.

The Club will also celebrate the languages of Melbourne’s diverse West in the lead up to the round – publishing footy articles on westernbulldogs.com.au in Vietnamese, Mandarin and Amharic (Ethiopian).