In recent years soccer has dramatically changed its media profile Down Under, with the game no longer a poor relation to sports such as Australian Football and the Rugby codes. But something which has angered many sports fans in Australia is the sudden insistence by soccer authorities that the round-ball game be referred to as Football and suggestions that it's the real football at the expense of all others, something which ignores both local football history and in fact the origins of all the football codes (something most soccer fans are probably unaware of). With this in mind it's somewhat offensive to read the coach of Sydney F.C., the Harbour city's premier soccer club, declaring Australians "who chose not to embrace the growing nature of football Down Under were un-Australian and insecure in their code". Branko Culina was also quoted on the Fox Sports website by AAP as saying that "All Australians are sports minded people and if you're not going to accept football you're un-Australian".

The term "un-Australian" seems to be bandied around these days to mean "if you don't agree with me then you're not a real Australian", even though multi-culturalism, democracy and diversity of opinion has long been a cornerstone of Australian society. A great irony is that although there were indeed those that weren't inclined to support soccer, it was through the open-minded majority who preferred other codes but didn't try to hold soccer down that the game was allowed to grow to its present size. Let's hope Culina was "quoted out of context" or was simply referring to people who may actively seek to hold the game down, as opposed to the many who may quite reasonably simply prefer other sports, such as the football codes that are contact sports and higher scoring. As other writers have noted before - the fact that McDonalds is a dominant world-wide food chain doesn't mean individuals should abandon their own local favourites to embrace it simply "because lots of other people eat it".

There are no official rankings for international Australian Football, and putting together such a list is fraught with difficulties such as the lack of regular international matches, questions of whether teams fielded their best sides, and the thorny issue of whether to only consider matches played under International Cup rules, not to mention the risk of upsetting people who have a strong attachment to their side. Nevertheless, WFN has thrown caution to the wind and had a go at ranking nations based on their form in recent years, up to the end of 2006 - read on to see where your favourite team was listed.

22 year old New Zealand rugby convert Adam Campbell is being hyped in the Australian media after a heroic effort against Hawthorn in the AFL.

Campbell was playing rugby union until he switched to Aussie Rules at the age of 16, after moving from Hamilton on New Zealand's north island to Aussie Rules heartland in Ballarat in country Victoria. At 192cm the tough key position player has been improving at a rapid rate, with a string of strong performances since his recent debut for Fremantle.

The game is featured in the Age article Campbell Goes from Zero to Hero.

On a promotional tour to Australia for the new Fantastic Four movie, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, some of the Hollywood actors in the cast (Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Chiklis and Jessica Alba), were treated to an introduction to Australian culture. As part of this, they attended an AFL Aussie Rules game between classic rivals Hawthorn and Essendon at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This was their first experience of the sport, and subsequent interviews with the stars revealed nothing but praise for the Australian game.

The selection of Kieran Jack to debut for the Sydney Swans this weekend in the AFL is a true example of the value of footy development. Kieran is the son of rugby league legend Gary Jack who represented Balmain, NSW and Australia - showing that in a city dominated by rugby league, and where it had long been said that Aussie rules would not get local kids to play the game, the attractions of the game can overcome.

According to a recent edition of a Melbourne newspaper, following the 2007 AFL season, as many as four clubs will run community camps overseas, with South Africa the AFL’s recommended destination. Other countries that may figure in calculations are the US, England, Japan, China and Dubai.

Zimbabwean-born Tinashe Nyatsanga took up upiring footy while at university in Geelong. After umpiring local Geelong and Bellarine Football League matches, he was one of the umpires able to officiate at the match between South Africa and the Clontarf Academy in Perth recently. An account of his trip is featured on the AFL website here, let's hope he's a sign of things to come in the increasing multiculturalism of Australian rules.

In the latest round of Footy Shorts we report on the good form of Colm Begley leading to controversy in Ireland, with the young gun showing impressive form just 18 months since starting out in Australian Football. And there's the strange but apparently true story of thieves stealing water from a football club in Brisbane - perhaps not surprising given the degree to which drought is now hurting much of Australia, perhaps even to the point of threatening footy.

Here are a few snippets of footy info from around the web over the past few weeks, with signs of increasing professionalism in South Africa, Jason Akermanis again pushing the AFL to embrace Japan, and Essendon translating part of their website into Japanese.

One of the ongoing complaints of Aussie Rules fans outside of Australia is the lack of access to watching AFL matches. Although the AFL website offers video streaming of games there have been plenty of people unhappy with its reliability and image quality. The dream for many supporters has been to get coverage on readily accessible cable/satellite television in their country. AFANA has long been at the forefront of pushing for this in North America and in 2006 the efforts of the Setanta network were generally well received. Now 2007 looks like a great advance, with Setanta locked in to AFL coverage through to 2011, adding unprecedented certainty. The network are also offering more live games and extending the service to Ireland and the United Kingdom in a move that can only assist the profile of the game.