Apologies for the site disruption today.  We were well aware we would exceed out monthly quota due to the growing popularity of the international footy and we requested an extension well in advance.

Unfortunately our web provider had a key person ill and of course for us the timing was most unlucky.  We wish that person a speedy and full recovery as they have always provided our site with excellent service and he is a greater supporter of footy.

The good news is we should be back on track now and look forward to bringing you match reports from today's games and will be back in action live on Friday for the major finals.

One innovation you may have missed was live audio commentary from 3 matches today (the men's big semi finals and Canada vs Japan) by Troy Thompson.  We'll let you know if he brings out the golden tonsils again on Friday and Saturday.

Please note that WFN may suffer a short disruption to our website some time on Wednesday 24th.  It's very unfortunate timing but beyond our control.  If this occurs please check back again soon as we hope that it will be brief.

WFN has updated its unofficial World Rankings after the recent international matches in Europe. Favourites Ireland (ranked 4th) comfortably defeated Great Britain (10th) in England, whilst in Paris home side France lost fairly convincingly to Germany (13th). It was the debut for France in full field internationals, remembering it takes 8 matches to be consider fully ranked on our table. The results saw all teams hold steady in their positions.

As far as we know these are the last full field international prior to the 2011 AFL International Cup. Depending on how many matches are played, we hope to see Tonga, Peace Team, China and India play enough games to fully qualify on our rankings. France may qualify depending on how we count lightning carnival matches (if they are played to start IC11).

In the next few weeks we'll open up some discussions on how the various countries might fare at IC11.

Latest matches:

British Bulldogs	5.6 (36)
Irish Warriors	11.6 (72)

France	2.7 (19)
Germany	13.5 (83)

Below are our updated ranks.

Due to the increasing amount of women's Australian football around the world, worldfootynews.com is re-organising its Links section, to provide appropriate categories rather than simply "Women's footy".

As such, our existing women's footy links will be shifting and appearing in the What's New section on the right hand side of the website.

WFN has updated its unofficial World Rankings after the recent international matches in Europe. Favourites Ireland (ranked 4th) defeated Great Britain (10th) in a thriller in Dublin, whilst in Copenhagen home side Denmark (8th) won comfortably over Sweden (11th). The home town wins to the higher ranked sides saw only one change to the rankings, with Denmark stepping above South Africa into 7th.

Irish Warriors 8.11 (57)
British Bulldogs 8.6 (52)

Denmark Vikings 12.7 (79)
Sweden Elks 4.5 (29)

Below are our updated ranks.

As football continues to expand its presence outside of Australia, greater news coverage is also required. Being a volunteer organisation our writers are limited by how much time they can commit to the site and occassionally we need to put out a request for assistance.

Our current areas of need are SE Asia, Africa and Canada, however we can always do with more assistance in other areas, such as covering the long list of European countries or keeping an eye on the lower tiers within Australia.  You don't need to be based in any particular country (most of our writers are in fact in Australia, although many have had overseas experience) nor do you need to have been involved with international football before. And with the 2011 Australian Football International Cup coming up in August the more writers the better based out of Melbourne and Sydney.  In general to write for us all you need is a spare hour or so a week, adequate writing skills and a love of the game.

We will give you support, provide plenty of contacts, and no particular computer skills are required - we'll show you how to upload your stories through a relatively simple web page. So if you have an interest in supporting international footy and getting a behind-the-scenes view on the game's growth, then consider volunteering to write for WFN. Contact Brett Northey for more information through our About Us - Contact Us page (or click on my name above and follow the links).

Please note that http://worldfootynews.com has been undergoing site maintenance from December 24th through to December 27th.

It is now complete. Please let us know if you encounter any problems.

WFN has now completed its Country Snapshots section for Asia.

This finalises our Snapshots, although they will always need ongoing updates.

The other completed regions are Africa, Europe, Oceania, the Middle East and North, Central and South America. They are available from the pulldown menu above titled Countries.

As always, let us know if there are any significant errors or omissions. We do realise that the Census data (2004) is well out of date, and there is some more recent data available. We'll hopefully address that at the end of the year.

A quick plug for our main sponsor, Burley-Sekem, who do sell to countries around the world, and can provide various Australian football items including Guernseys (jumpers) and footballs. Of particular interest is the colourful array of international jumpers they've produced and specifically featured in their brochure which can be accessed by clicking on the yellow Order Sheet that features at the top of our site.

Over the last few days worldfootynews.com has been pleased to unveil our new logo and website banner. Both are courtesy of Anthony Costa of Costa Sports Logos.

The logo features our commonly used acronym, WFN, as well as the website address, and a world map morphed to a football. The banner features images from the 2008 Australian Football International Cup. Time and quality photos permitting, we may be lucky enough to have Anthony produce a similar banner featuring other images later in the year.

And as always we hope many websites will make use of our logo to link to us, or at least consider putting us in their text links, so we can continue to spread their football news all around the world.