The Irish Warriors have named the first 14 squad members for the 2014 AFL International Cup to be staged in Melbourne, Australia from August 9th to 23rd this year. The Warriors are the current holders of the International Cup, having won the most recent tournament in 2011 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground after a dramatic comeback victory over Papua New Guinea.

They are also the only nation to have won the tournament twice - having also won the inaugural tournament in 2002.

The 14 selected are European-based players, and the majority of them played in the 2013 European Cup winning side. This is a completely new selection of Irish-based players from the victorious 2011 team with most of that squad now retired from International duty.

The following article comes from the AFL Sweden website, with their kind permission, and details the players selected for the nation's IC14 squad for August in Melbourne. Also attached is the video announcement of the Swedish squad.

The fifth International Cup in Australian Football will take place in Melbourne. The Swedish Elks will take part in this great tournament and compete against the best national teams in the world. Today, after much anticipation, the squad has been announced that will have the honour to represent Sweden.

For this landmark event, which is only held every third year, head coach Daniel McClaer will bring one of the strongest Swedish sides ever to Australia.

"The majority of players were part of last year's success at the European Championships, but there are some new faces as well," says Elks head coach Dan McClaer.

Head coach Daniel McClaer is excited about the strength and versatility of the Elks 2014 squad and has hopes of a top ten finish in the twenty-three team tournament:

This is the third time the Elks are representing Sweden at the International Cup, so this time we are planning and expecting a Top 10 finish. We have a slightly more experienced and mature squad in comparison to the 2011 campaign.

"The boys have been in preparations since last summer and are really looking forward to showing the football world that we are no walkovers."

"The squad is a well balanced group that will showcase their speed, skill and determination. The versatility of all the players to play any position is also a key to our game in this tournament, which we are looking forward to participating in!"

Read the full story for the squad list and video announcement.

The USA Women's team known as the US Freedom has been named for the 2014 International Cup.  The squad was named following the camp held in Houston, Texas two weeks ago.  More than 60 players and staff attended the event at the Cullen Park Soccer Fields on the outskirts of Houston.

The Freedom were seeded 5th going into IC11 but finished third behind Ireland and Canada.

From the IC11 World Team selected at the conclusion of the tournament Judith Stein, Becky Kraft and Lindsey Kastanek all return for the Freedom's IC bid.

The 2014 International Cup will take place from the 9th to the 23rd of August 2014. As with IC11, there will be a women’s tournament taking place alongside the men’s event. This year, the women’s games are planned on the 12th, 14th, 16th of August, with the semi-finals and final happening on the 19th and 22nd of August. So far, teams expressing interest in entering include Canada, USA, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, PNG, Ireland and the European Crusaders.

In order to start the process of holding trials and selecting a team, AFL Europe’s Women’s Football Co-ordinator Gaelle Hazimeh is trying to get an idea of the number of players in each country who would like to attend the International Cup with the Crusaders team. If you are a player of European nationality, based in Europe, Australia or anywhere else, and you would like to take part, please email Hazimeh via gaelle.hazimeh@afleurope.org

Eight  teams are set to contest the 2014 International Cup women’s competition. The Australian Indigenous and Multicultural team that played in 2011 will not be renewed for the competition to be held in Melbourne in August.

New comers to the International Cup are Fiji, New Zealand, Tonga and a team formed by women across Europe to be known as the European Crusaders.

Twenty three teams are set to contest the 2014 International Cup men’s competition. Timor-Leste is the notable team missing for the initial acceptances for the tournament to be held in Melbourne in August.

New comers to the International Cup are Croatia, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Finland return to the International Cup after missing in 2011.

Others such as Spain, Germany, and Iceland look like missing yet again presumably to keep funds invested in their local development. And hopes that we would see our first South American team at the International Cup have faded as no teams have been nominated. It is not known if they had intended to play in the AFL 9’s section that was initially mooted.

The CNFA has announced the squad which will arrive in Melbourne later this year to compete at the 2014 Australian Football International Cup.

The list of 28, plus 5 emergencies, was released on the CNFA blog this week, along with an official announcement video. The list is very fresh, with 23 of the 28 selected in the main squad being new to the IC stage.

Alban Schieber, Yoann Alliot-Marty, Emilien Martinez and Grégoire Patacq are the only four France-based veterans returning to the squad from their 2011 campaign, although they will be joined by Pierre-Jacques Labigang from Melbourne local club Parkside, who also appears in his second IC. Thibault Picard from South Australian club the Lock Kangaroos makes a second Australian-based squad member.

Casting their net to French expats playing elsewhere in the world, Clément Coste, Kévin Barranco and Thomas Core (emergency) have been selected from the Montreal metro league in Québec, as well as Jean Rosado from the Fort Lauderdale Fighting Squids in Florida, USA. Pierre-Etienne Dandaleix joins the squad from the Bristol Dockers in England.

Squad list follows.

With the arrival of the 2014 football season, the reality of the next International Cup is just around the corner. World Footy News will be looking at the prospects of teams planning to come out to Australia for the event over the coming months. This story, looking at Finnish football, has been reproduced with the kind permission of Justin Lassey at Bigfooty Media. It is the written article drawn from the recent video clip http://www.worldfootynews.com/article.php/20131113101224554 posted late last year.

In this instalment of the International Footy series we talk to Janne Hokkonen, the President of the Finland AFL.

Janne first got involved in Australian football when he was looking for a hobby in 2009. He says it was an accident, when a family friend introduced him to the game. He started playing kick to kick in the park with a small group of guys, and within the month was playing in his first game. He says that he’s spent most of the time in the backline, but has played all over except ruck due to his short stature.

 Thinking of playing footy in Australia ahead of the 2014 International Cup? West Brunswick Amateur Football Club trains and plays on the grounds that were used for most of the International Cup games in Melbourne in 2008 and 2011 (Western Oval, McAlister Oval and Ransford Ovals in Parkville).  And they are looking for IC14 players to join them.

Thanks to Kashif Bouns for the following.

The Pakistan Shaheens rapid rise in the Australian football world took another step yesterday at Arden Street (North Melbourne's training base), with the team playing its first full field practice match, up against Team Africa. While the end result fell to the Africans, the Shaheens put on a showing that proved there is plenty to come.

After a minute’s silence to recognise the life of former South African president Nelson Mandala, the Shaheens started well dominating the opening few minutes and peppering the goals for a number of behinds, which wasn’t that surprising given they had only stood on a footy field once before as a team. Team Africa then got a bit of a run-on with some unanswered goals but pressure from the Shaheens defence saw them spraying their attack and missing more goals than they kicked.

The second half saw the first goal for the Shaheens to Atta Khan with a set play out of defence leading to a Team Africa error and a set shot from inside the square. New player Muazz scored the Shaheens second goal a few minutes later.