The AFL have announced that the 2010 NAB Cup competition will be viewable live online for many international fans. This week's matches are:

West Coast Eagles vs. Essendon
Friday 12 February from 09:45 GMT

Adelaide Crows vs. Port Adelaide
Saturday 13 February from 05:40 GMT

Hawthorn v Richmond
Saturday 13 February from 08:40 GMT

Western Bulldogs v Brisbane Lions
Sunday 14 February from 05:40 GMT

Visit this link for more information.

2010 will see an unprecedented number of players on AFL lists that have come from overseas. We're not talking overseas-born but Australian-raised, but players who actually came to Australia to play in the AFL. In all there are 21 players in this category, though the number is fluid with International Scholarship Listings now occurring regularly.

3 of these players are on AFL senior lists, 10 are on rookie lists, while 8 are International Scholarship Listed. Not counted in the 21 are 2 Papuans unofficially getting experience with Brisbane (through their Reserves) and the Gold Coast.

Of the 21 players 11 are Irishmen, 5 Papuan, 2 Fijian, 1 New Zealander, 1 American and 1 Canadian.

The total could easily double in the next two years. Of course the key number will perhaps be seeing the number on senior lists (3) rise dramatically.

Below is a list of all these internationals. With so many reports coming out there's always the possibility of errors, let us know if you spot any.

In this second article on the World 18, we speak to Ireland, Sweden and Canada about the likelihood of their Leagues contributing players to the international side headed to the AFL Under 16s later this year. The squad will probably be announced in March, and separate to a Pacific Islands squad also competing. As international players will in general have had less exposure to the sport, the two international sides can field players up to 18 years and will compete in Division 2, but nevertheless under the watchful eye of AFL club talent scouts.

See also our poll.

When the Australian Football League announced plans to include a World XVIII in the AFL NAB Under 16 state championships in Western Sydney in 2010, there was genuine excitement that the team would provide an unprecedented pathway for young talent around the world. But clearly the squad was likely to be dominated by Papua New Guinea, South Africa and some Oceanian countries. The recent news that the AFL will now have two international sides - the World 18 and a Pacific Islands side, gives new impetus to those nations with smaller junior programs to put forward their young players.

It's likely that the nation providing the most to the World 18 will be South Africa, where a strongly supported program has nearly 20,000 juniors participating. But worldfootynews.com has had a chat to some of the other countries that would be chances to be represented - USA, Great Britain, China, Ireland, Canada, Japan and Sweden. At time of writing no response was received to our enquiries from some of the other obvious possible candidates in Denmark, Indonesia and Malaysia. In this first of two articles we talk to footy representatives from the United States, Great Britain and China.

We have regularly provided an annual summary of Australian football's international progress. Since beginning this website in 2004 we have had the good fortune to be able to report that each year has been an improvement on the last. Perhaps a day will come when this is no longer the case, and certainly throughout the 20th century the sport's expansion had its peaks and troughs, its false dawns.

Yet we are clearly seeing a run of good news, with growing playing numbers and quality. Even just focussing on the last two years, 2008 saw a record number of teams at the International Cup, including bringing in China and India, the two nations that represent over a third of the world's population. The tournament was at its highest standard ever come the finals, justifying the new International Scholarship Lists which were made easier for clubs to use. AFL clubs also began looking more closely at Samoa and Fiji. Other highlights included continued progress in South Africa, France, England and Canada (amongst others), a NAB Cup match in Dubai, commencement of work on an oval in Tianjin (China), and domestically the AFL bullish towards expansion into the Gold Coast and Western Sydney.

So how could 2009 top that? And what chance for 2010 to continue the trend?

As the new year begins we present below the club premiers and provincial champions from across the world of Australian football for 2009. This is the fourth year in a row that we've compiled the list (see Club Premiers 2006, Club Premiers 2007 and Club Premiers 2008).

It was a year that once again saw powerhouse clubs dominate some leagues. At Australian state league level, former strugglers Central Districts made it an incredible 8 out of the last 10 in the SANFL in South Australia (well deserved but perhaps becoming an unhealthy dominance for the league).

The West London stranglehold on London premierships was loosened, with the Shepherds Bush Raiders finally losing their grip on London's Conference, going down to the Clapham Demons. But West London's Wildcats racked up their 6th straight London Premiership title, maintaining the club's run of silverware.

North Beach won their sixth straight in the WAAFL (Western Australian amateurs) A grade and the Goodwood Saints won their fifth straight in the SAAFL (South Australian amateurs) A grade and the Logan Cobras made it four in a row in Brisbane's women's league

Three-peats went to Rheinland in Germany's top division, and the same for the Darebin Falcons in the Victorian Women's Premier Division and the Eastern Suburbs Bulldogs in Wellington.

WFN has now completed its Country Snapshots section for Oceania, the Middle East and North, Central and South America. They are available from the pulldown menu above titled Countries, and add to the previously completed section on Africa.

Over the coming months we hope to do the last two regions - Europe and Asia.

As always, let us know if there are any significant errors or omissions.

Dozing off watching an agonisingly slow session of Australia v Pakistan Test cricket, one wonders (although some of the best cricket still comes from Test matches) where would cricket be today without the money, participation and new fans brought to the game since the 1970s World Series Cricket revolution championed the one-day match format.

In an increasingly time and space poor world, most team games have their smaller or shortened versions which encourage wider participation and are used to promote those sports in new markets. In comparison Australian Football, the big game on a big field, has been slow to embrace smaller formats.

In a recent book titled Soccernomics, the authors, a finance writer and an economist, stated that sporting leagues like the NFL and the AFL were likely be overwhelmed by soccer. “But Aussie rules can exist side by side with soccer. We said in the book that it may be a subsidised folklore festival so it is not my bet but I do think it is a distinct possibility," says one of the authors according to SBS's Matthew Hall. One must worry at the outset that people who love soccer enough to write a book about it might be slightly biased in their opinion, but be that as it may. Does such an idea make sense? Does the economics of it make sense?

Pictured at left is Papau New Guinea as it celebrates winning the 2008 International Cup

Last week's rookie draft featured several selections with international ties, one of whom was Sean Yoshiura. Yoshiura was born in Japan, where he spent the first seven years of his life; ethnically he is half-Japanese and half-Australian. On top of being a footballer, Yoshiura is a talented Cross Country runner who last year partook in the World Schoolboy Cross Country Championships.

His story can be read in articles in the Herald Sun and Courier Mail from before his signing and again in the Courier Mail following the draft.

The Japan AFL are aware of Yoshiura and perhaps as his career develops he will become a figurehead for the game in Japan, much like Aaron Edwards and David Rodan are for Samoa and Fiji respectively.