The AFL World Team is finally taking shape

Yeah.that perfect. I love the "AFL World Team"

http://www.worldfootynews.com/article.php/20100226153157305 I have noticed a lot of boys from West New Britain, i believe the game has been popular in that region since WW2 as servicemen from Australia introduced it to the locals. I stand corrected but the boys from West New Britain and Bouganville Islands tend to be taller than the mainlanders, which may give them a bit of a advantage when clubs are sizing ( so to speak) up draftees.

My pleasure bro.

this is funny bro. I have had a great laugh today. thanks bros

Although the AFL world team would appear ATM to me made up primarily of South Africans, PNG and Irish footballers stand by for some more footballers from mainland Europe in the years to come. The AFL is funding a position of European general manager for 3 years, applications have to be in by 19th Feb. Anyone interested .... is there any roarers that would be happy to impart their knowledge of our indigenous game !!!. http://www.worldfootynews.com/article.php/20100209073917143#comments http://www.aflsweden.com/docs/regionalmanagereuropedescription.pdf

Roman - baseball is a global sport albeit minor in most countries except Japan and some central American nations and lots of players from several countries go on to play in the MLB in the USA. Your analogy is probably partly right. Australian Rules Football teams around the world will give rise to lots of players who come to Australia to play the sport at a professional level. The value of this however to the AFL will be significant - the standard of play will rise with the growing talent pool and the international stars in the AFL will draw in fans from overseas who will contribute to revenues via TV, merchandise, overseas memberships of clubs and as "Aussie Rules tourists" to the Australian economy. This will be a gradual process but will ensure an increasingly successful AFL competition in the future. Your analogy may be wrong also in that South Africa, PNG and maybe New Zealand could produce teams in 20 or 30 years that could play against if not Australia, then against AFL clubs or in some resurrected State of Origin competition. Ultimately Australian Rules could be like Rugby Union or Rugby League - with a few countries capable of fielding national teams and many more playing the game as a minor sport but contributing players and fans to the main competition - in this case the AFL.

oh thankyou MC. Thats a compliment coming from you!!!!

Very good Gatto Nero, best post i have read so far, you are dead right, and rugby league plus AFL are best concerned with development in these areas. As you mentioned, the Black deseased areas, (harsh but true?) are the areas that rugby league and AFL can make inroads into, the areas left to fend for themselves over the last 100 years are the growth and foundations of sport that the top 2 games in Australia needs to focus on, and thrive hopefully. Yes soccer has its place, but other sports also can have a great affect on these places. Something rugby union has failed to do. :)

The AFL World Team is finally taking shape - Just like the American baseball world series.....WORLD only with American teams!

Some great pics on that site. For me - the eyes have it. This is how you can assess the seriousness or otherwise of the efforts of the SA palyers. Look at their eyes. The intensity with which they are watching the ball or their opponent. That's how you can tell these blokes aren't mucking around, they are really playing the game.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/89226/default.aspx Micky O: "In Cape Town we met the South African coastal squad, which showed a lot of potential with their height, speed and endurance. We ended up winning by a big margin, but I was really impressed with their ball-winning ability. They ran all day. If they spent some time with AFL people working on the finer points of the game, no doubt some could go on to play AFL."

They'll get a surprise in few years for sure these anti AFL naysaysers. :-)

No need to apologise, the developments in Sth Africa are very recent. Gatto Nero is spot on. Redb

Most of the kids playing are pretty poor and living in the shantytowns. I've spent quite a bit of time in SA, and if you're familiar with it you'll appreciate that those on the bottom rung of society don't influence the media much, and not a lot of what happens in the slums makes it into the press. Those news items that do are generally negative. It's easy to visit Cape Town, lay on the beach at Camp's Bay or drink beers at a shiny new bar on the Waterfront and forget the 3 million people living in poverty on the other side of Table Mountain. More's the pity.

Same thing happens here in Canada. I have had several Canadian families contact our club over the past two seasons who have lived in Australia temporarily for work, their kids are hooked on footy and Auskick, and the parents want to get them involved in footy once they move home. Unfortunately our club only runs programs for school kids in Years 7-12 at the moment, but I foresee that in two years' time we'll have Auskick up-and-running.

Our clubs operate in the same way that amateur clubs do across Australia. They're not professional in the true sense of the word, though some players and officials (coaches, umpires) are getting paid for their contributions. It varies between clubs and leagues. Another change in the past ten years has been that people are making a living from footy outside Australia now. Previously it had just been a recreational pastime. Now we have league administrators, junior development officers, equipment and kit manufacturers all making a living off footy, and they're based outside Australia. It's a big development, as having someone developing footy full-time makes a huge difference in growing the grassroots.

Depends on what level you're talking about. You start small and grow. My local women's footy club in Canada formed in 2007 with three expat girls keen for a kick. We have 100+ playing now - 90% are Canadian - and we're generating about $30,000 in revenue annually, which we spend on junior programs and to travel to tournaments. We just signed an All-Australian women's footballer from the ACT league to join us for the coming summer, and pay the head coach, whom we require to be properly accredited and committed. So in three years a girl's footy team in Canada has grown to be a pretty serious club business, in that sense. We're still nowhere near on par with Aussie clubs, but the potential is certainly there.

I'd say there easily would be. Most schools I visited in the NWP fielded several junior sides for boys at each age level - U12, U14, U16. Each school could realistically field 10 teams of boys alone (some girls are playing at younger age groups, but AFL South Africa targets them to become umpires), and there are a lot more than 75 schools that have regular footy programs running. That's not counting senior clubs, of which I visited 4 over three days, and that was in 2005. The playing base is definitely there, though in a country of 45 million, it obviously isn't making headlines every week.