AFL's lack of international competition hurting the game

Thats your favorit line stop clouding the issue speak for yourself!

Excuse me Australian girls football players and boys are getting college/uni scholarhips in the USA, football is getting more and more popular there - Aussie Rules is dominated in Victorian News papers and TV News and such success and any success in football is kept quiet. There are many Australians playing football all over the world and getting paid. Even our local ABC radio Albury/Wodonga have a winter sports program with Joesph Thomsen and a sports hillbully from Broken Hill ABC radio that only give us AFL and they call it the Sport report!

christianity and rugby came to places like Fiji with christianity remaining strong in the islands because rugby is the game they play in heaven :) There is 2 things that Fiji will never waiver, their strong faith and their love of rugby. Everything else is irrevelant...

Although Australia pulled out of Oceania, FIFA have upped their spending in these economies. With the World Cup bid requiring the support of the OFC, the FFA have also been spending on equipment, fields and training. The last I heard, football was outspending both the rugby codes combined.

That's nice.

Rugby is the national sport in Fiji

Good to see the Oceania Juniors tournament ready to go in Fiji in the next couple of days. it occurred to me that with Australian soccer having pulled out of the Oceania confederation, it's a nice little combination of factors to give Australian Football a good shot at getting somewhere - - - I wonder if that's been a consideration in deciding to actually have a reasonable (I stop short of saying 'fair dinkum') crack at it.

AFL will do well to not repeat the misstakes of Leagues fantasy driven expansionist ambitions. Some posters allude to the fact that AFL does not need to be an International sport. Here in the U.K, as witnessed by the recent 4 Nations debacle , money is thrown away to support invented International teams at the expense of real supporters.

Jaredsbro Australian Footy was palyed briefly in NZ post gold rush and by expat Aussies in the main i believe. That's along time ago. Who knows how good NZ would be at our game. NZers are obsessively opposed to most things Australian however and it has been stated that the game would have to compromise any referance to its cultural heritage in order to placate Kiwis to be involved at any serious level, so thats quite insulting for starters. I personally don't care one iota that NZers do not take an interest in our game as there are more than enough Trans Tasman jingo contests to endure as is and if anything, it is refreshing to be able to follow something that does not include NZers for a change. I have watched Junior Kiwi teams over the years, play in the now defunct' Barrasi Cup' and can say although their entusiasm was compendable, especially when pitted against any Australian teams which was almost akin to war for them, their skill levels were no where near as good as say the PNG teams and this despite far greater resources and support from OZ. The NZ teams I have witnessed in action and this has also been said of the recent VAFA U18's v the NZ Falcon U20's, tend to play quite an agricultural style game, which has much to do with their Union background. These games are always blown quite liberally otherwise the free kick count would prove impossibly demoralising for the young Kiwi lads, who are very hard at the ball and have little restraint or understanding for the finer points of the game. MY real concern is more to do with the AFL potentially gifting a NZ city a franchise at the expense of our loyal demographics. This is unacceptable to me, especially since NZ would have absolutely diddly pedigree to offer such a franchise. Any NZ AFL organisation would be entirely patronised from the players, coaching staff through to management by Australians so it would be a purely corporate top down move on their part which must NOT be allowed to happen with 'Australian' Football. Canberra, the capital of our country continues to campaign for inclusion in the indigenous codes elite league as well as having to consatntly grovel for more elitte fixtures being played there. Conversely Wellington, the capital of a soveriegn country and an AFL backwater, is being touted for two Doggies home games after doing the dirty on the ACT in this respect for 2010. That is also insulting. The ACT have quite a decent Aust Footy pedigree and in fact, any place you care to mention in this country compared to NZ does. I would say the exceptiopn in venturing off shore for some talent would be PNG in this respect. T.I and the Tiwis especially, are extremely passionate and skilled at the indig game and close to PNG as is all of the top end where the game is very strong indeed, so the AFL really should be focusing more on our backyard potential rather than any Kiwi corporate driven folly. Cheers

Should add: Why this international expansion? Well - it is not the AFL going out and trying to evangelise the world - no matter that some cynics in the media have tried to portray it as. The growth from zilch to 40,000 in 15 years was nearly all expat Aussies wanting to play the game they loved where they were living and inspiring local converts to join them. In the past few years the AFL has had to take notice because the international Aussie Rules leagues wanted to come and play a world cup style tournament in Melbourne. The AFL found itself having to be host to uninvited guests. Then it found by last year with the jump in standard in the 3rd International Cup - that these guests had a lot of talent. I suspect the AFL's current interest is they see international development shoring up the standard of the competition through increased talent. If 30 years from now (and very possible) there is 1 million participants in Australia and another million overseas - then the standard of an 18 or 20 teams AFL competition would be very high - drawing more fans, TV dollars, merchandising, kids wanting to play the game. By then a niche global TV market of a miniscule % of world's sports fans could translate to a doubling of TV rights for the AFL. There is another side to the globalisation coin. Certainly in Australia globalisation supports interest in big international sports like Soccer. But conversely a tiny growth of Australian Football globally leads to big dividends for the indigenous code here.

Aussie Rules grows every year around the world - sure it is only "green shoots" that could whither and die, but in fact the growth has accelerated every year for past 15 years from virtually zilch to around 40,000 participants. The structures are starting to be put in place for the next phase of more organised growth - and this includes belated interest by the AFL itself. Expect 100,000 participants 10 years from now and as many footy players outside Oz as within it 30 years from now. www.worldfootynews.com

Yeah a definite advantage, but remember the Aboriginals (if I know my Oz History) were largely confined to specific areas of the continent. The Maori travelled around a lot more=because everything was a lot closer ;) This interchange created a uniquely Maori culture where otherwise you would've had twenty or so tribes with their origins all in different Polynesian islands. By the way I think NZ would actually be quite good at Aussie rules Republican, it may be an insult to you as you think us below your wonderful game, but there was a reason it was at least as popular as other football codes in the South Island from 1850s to 1870s. The problem with the coming of Rugby School rules was that it meant the end of a brief period of cross-polination between footies in NZ (particularly in the coastal strips) but since then we've defined success in sport first by seeking to beat Albion and then more recently you guys (particularly after your RU got better and our Cricket got better!)

jono Thanks to you too. I trust you have taken on board some of the real concerns from those who DON'T support the internationalist agenda as well. Cheers

I do believe Kiwis think theirs is the only country on the planet that is 'beautiful'. This is something they frequently use when comparing Oz with NZ and implies that Australia lacks beauty. 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' surely! AndyRoo This is an Interesting analogy which is not often realized with re the Indigenous peoples of this continent and NZ's and that is Aboriginal Australians were far more fragmented and broken up into numerous language groups. They were often at odds with each other and the immense vastness of the country made it near impossible in countering the imperialist advances of perfidious Mother Albion. Conversely, the Maori according to my sources, spoke the one language which helped their cause no end and geographically they were advantaged in this respect as well. Just thought this should be shared given the predictable stereotyping that sometimes ensues when broaching this subject. I will endeavor to get back on track now. Cheers Cheers

I always felt like kiwis were a little bit softer of heart (in a good way). If your in Thailand and the beggers approach you it's always the Kiwi who snaps first and hands over his baht :) And also the treatment of indegenous people isn't a favourable comparison for Australians.

Now I really am insulted...absolutely no-one alterted me to the subtle subterfuge happening in this thread (behind my back I might admit ;) ) NZ is a beautiful country and in terms of the variety of landscape maybe only the United States is better than us. But in terms of culture we tend to be quite...backward, in comparison with you Aussies. But you Aussies are exceptionally blessed by an aptitude for sport (and you're right we sometimes do envy you guys) and a more optimistic outlook on life in spite (or because) of the hardships of your founding We Kiwis are better at taking risks if only because all those who came here definitely had a lucid notion about how far we are from everywhere else, which didn't appear to be the case for some Australians who came from the old country Finally there's a general consensus about how friendly we are as a people, maybe due to the long-lasting tradition in these parts of being hospitable to all outsiders or maybe as part of a realisation of the fact that we need to get the most from all the visitors we get ;)

Michael C You have got to be 'Roars' solitary Hippo Boffin surely? I must defer to you on anything relating to hippos in future, pygmy or otherwise mate. I am impressed. The GWS Pygmy Hippos does have a ring to it however - the Canberra Parasites??? Cheers.

There could be merit in purchasing H2O from the Shakey Isles to be sure however, any support for a NZ Footy franchise must be seriously challenged Pip. There are many more deserving local demos to nurture and foster and quite frankly to go to NZ would devalue our game irreparably. You know it makes sense Cheers

There's a lot of merit to that idea.