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One in, four out for IC11

  • Monday, May 02 2011 @ 09:28 pm ACST
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International Cup 2011

The seemingly inevitable has occurred, with several more teams confirmed as pulling out of the 2011 International Cup. Every 3 years the list of hopefuls shrinks as the event draws near, and we watch on hoping that the final number is at least higher than the previous tournaments. That still looks reasonably safe at this stage, especially as Timor-Leste are apparently back in contention, a surprise given their position in February. Note that this list is "in contention", not a list of 100% confirmed contestants.

WFN spoke to AFL Multicultural and International Coordinator Peter Romaniw and he confirmed that Croatia have pulled out due to the large financial challenge. Also missing from the last list we saw are Iceland, Finland and Indonesia. As a very young footy nation and a developing country the absence of Indonesia is no surprise.

The current list now stands at 21, including an Australian-based multicultural team. 2008 saw 16 nations in the main draw. Question marks remain over some candidates, such as the Swiss still needing some funding proposals to succeed.

The men's nominations (previous attendance in brackets) that we believe are still in the running are:

  Nation Previous ICs attended
1. PNG 2002, 05, 08
2. New Zealand     2002, 05, 08
3. South Africa 2002, 05, 08
4. Ireland 2002, 05, 08
5. Nauru 2002, 08
6. Canada 2002, 05, 08
7. USA 2002, 05, 08
8. Japan 2002, 05, 08
9. Great Britain 2002, 05, 08
10. Samoa 2002, 05, 08
11. Denmark 2002, 08
12. Tonga 2008 (not in main draw)
13. Sweden 2008
14. China 2008
15. India 2008
16. Peace Team 2008
17. Switzerland (New)
18. Fiji (New)
19. France     (New)
20. East Timor (New)
21. Multicultural 2008 (not in main draw)