Australian rules football around the world

Australian rules football is a sport played in countries around the world. In 2006, about 16,000 people played in structured competitions outside of Australia and at least 20 leagues that are recognised by the game's governing body, exist outside of Australia.[1]. This figure had grown to a total of 34,845 participation by the end of 2007.[2] In contrast, there are over 600,000 players in Australia where the game is at its strongest and overseas players make up less than 2% of the total players worldwide. Although semi-professional players have come from outside of Australia, and there have been several players in the VFL/AFL who have were born ouside Australia, no player to learn the game overseas has yet played a game in the Australian Football League.
The growth of Australian rules in the 19th Century and early 20th Century was rapid, but it went into rapid decline following World War I. After World War II, the sport experienced a small amount of growth in the Pacific region, particularly in Nauru, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.
Australian rules football is emerging as an international sport much later than other forms of football such as soccer or rugby, but has grown substantially as an amateur sport in some countries since the 1980s. Initially the sport has grown with the Australian diaspora, aided by multiculturalism and assisted by exhibition matches and players who have converted to and from other football codes. In Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States there are many thousands of players and these countries. Canada, Japan, Denmark and Sweden have also shown strong potential in the sport amongst local players in the lead up to the 2008 Australian Football International Cup.
The AFL became the defacto governing body when it pushed for the closure of the International Australian Football Council in 2002.
Australian rules football is played professionally only by men in Australia and is major spectator sport only in Australia, with the exception of occasional exhibition games staged in other countries and carnival type events overseas.
Although the game is played in many countries, Australian Football League as world governing body only has 13 affiliated international governing bodies, AFL Canada, Danish Australian Football League, BARFL, AFL Japan, ARFLI, Nauru Australian Football Association, New Zealand AFL, USAFL, AFL South Africa, AFL PNG, AFL Samoa, Tonga Australian Football Association and AFL Germany, although the league has working relationships with bodies in additional countries who may form affiliation agreements in future and have sent (or may in future send) teams to the International Cup.

Early beginnings

Almost as soon as the game was becoming established in Australia, it had spread to New Zealand and South Africa, initially due to the Otago Gold Rush and Witwatersrand Gold Rush. The game was further fuelled in South Africa by Australian soldiers in the First and Second Boer Wars.
There were reports of early competitions in England, Scotland and also Japan, started by expatriate Australians and servicemen.

The First World Governing Body and International Competition

In New Zealand, where proximity to Australia saw a formidable league, quickly grew to a formidable 115 clubs by the turn of the 19th Century. As the game spread, it became known as Australasian Football, with delegates from New Zealand added to the newly formed Australasian Football Council.
In 1908, New Zealand defeated both New South Wales and Queensland at the Jubilee Australasian Football Carnival, an event held to celebrate 50 years of Australian Football.

Decline & hiatus

World War I saw the game being played by Australian servicemen around the world, particularly in Egypt and in Europe in France, Belgium and England.
Following the war, the game went into a sharp decline outside of Australia, with all domestic competitions dying out. National teams and international competition in the sport were non-existent for three quarters of a 20th Century. The return of many Australian expatriates from overseas goldfields and tours of duty combined with Australia's low profile on the world stage offered few opportunities for the game to grow during this time. With the withdrawal of its New Zealand delegates, the sport returned to the title of Australian Football, governed by the Australian Football Council. Concerned primarily with the growth of their own domestic competitions, the Australian leagues and governing bodies made little effort to develop or promote the game until the 1950s, and the council's role was mainly to oversee the growing importance of interstate test matches.
Nevertheless, the longest running fixture outside of Australia, the annual Oxford University versus Cambridge University match in England has been held since 1921 and has emerged into a fierce rivalry, and worthy of half-blue status at Oxford.[3] Apart from this match, however the game was rarely played in England.

Return of Oceania football

The only overseas place where the sport has been continuously played is the former Australian trustee mandate of Nauru, which began both senior and junior local competitions in the 1930s. The sport was also introduced Territory of New Guinea in 1944 and the Territory of Papua in 1948.
World War II saw some servicemen play the game overseas, particularly in Asia in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia and Africa in Egypt and Algeria. During the Vietnam War, matches were even played by servicemen against the local Vietnamese.
In the 1960s, Australian leagues began to show some interest in expansion of the game outside of Australia. 1963 saw the first Australian rules football exhibition matches played in the United States. Australian state leagues began occasionally promoting themselves in this way throughout the following decades.
In 1967, it was reported in the VFL Record's "Footy Facts" column that Australian football clubs existed in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town and that the VFL was optimistic about the future of the game in South Africa.[4] Little is known of how or when these clubs had formed or what later became of them.
Since 1967 there have been many matches between Australian and Irish teams, under various sets of hybrid, compromise rules. In 1984, the first official representative matches of International rules football were played, and these were played annually each October until 2006.
New Zealand resumed a local competition in 1974.
By 1975, Papua New Guinea had gained peaceful independence and test matches began to be played against teams from Australia. The first ever full international match involving Australia was played in 1977 at under 17 level between Australia and Papua New Guinea in Adelaide, with Australia taking the honours.[5] Since then, Australia have been peerless in the sport and seldom compete at international level.
Despite these small advancements to the international aspects of the game, progress overseas was rarely covered in the Australian media.

[edit] Modern era - The game begins abroad
In the late 1980s, successful VFL exhibition matches attracted large crowds and spawned fledgeling local competitions in both Japan and Canada. The Australian media showed only a token interest in the matches in London and Japan involving VFL clubs. It was during this decade that the sport was first televised in North America and the United Kingdom.

Game Spreads

The largest barriers to growth of Australian rules football internationally have traditionally been distance, field availability and player numbers. With a total of at least 36 player required for a game and a cricket sized pitch, this made it difficult for organisers in countries where space was a premium, enclosed grounds were not available and attracting participants would prove difficult. While these factors were not a problem in Papua New Guinea or New Zealand, they did pose large problems to leagues in Europe, Asia and America. The more inventive of organisers began to accept modified versions of the game, such as 9-a-side, often played on any available field, open space, parks, soccer or rugby fields. These approaches to the game were highly successful.
In the late 1980s, as these factors became less of an obstacle, amateur leagues were established in Japan (1987), England, Denmark and Canada (1989). In the case of Japan and Canada, these were directly sparked by VFL exhibition matches.
In the 1990s, the Australian diaspora had spread and amateur competition has grown in countries such as Sweden (1993), Germany (1995), USA (1996), Argentina, Spain and Samoa (1997), South Africa (1998), as well as a number of solely expatriate teams, mainly based in South East Asia.
During this time, the VFL had expanded to become the AFL and in turn commanded a greater national and international audience. Word of the sport grew out of AFL exhibition matches, cult television following and Internet communication. North American fans formed an organization, AFANA, specifically to work for improved media coverage of Australian football.
The traditionalists in the governing bodies of Australia (which became the AFL) were reluctant to sanction any games which were not played exactly according to the Laws of the Game, and the AFL initially did not recognise leagues which played the game on fields that did not closely match the proper dimensions or had less than 16 players per side.
Since the 1990s, these attitudes have changed somewhat and the AFL and other development bodies have directly contributed to the development the game overseas.

Formation of a World Governing Body and International Competition

The International Australian Football Council (IAFC) was formed after football first featured at the Arafura Games in 1995.
Since 1998, the Barassi International Australian Football Youth Tournament, endorsed by the AFL as part of its International Policy, has hosted several junior teams from other countries.
Since 2000, fledgeling competitions have been established in countries such as Ireland (2000), Tonga (2002), Scotland, France and China (2005).
Television and the Internet have since helped to increase the awareness of the game outside of Australia.
Inspired by successful Arafura Games competitions, the inaugural Australian Football International Cup was held in Melbourne in 2002, an initiative of the IAFC and the AFL. The first International Cup also marked the beginnings of a very small media interest in the international aspects of the game in Australia.
At the 2002 International Cup, meetings held between the AFL, IAFC and international teams at the International Cup saw the AFL become the de facto world governing body for the sport, with the leagues linked to the teams affiliating with the AFL. Some of the members of the IAFC disputed this move and continued the organisation in name. This organisation was finally completely dissolved in 2005, dropping all public claims to being the world governing body for the sport and being replaced by the development organisation Aussie Rules International.

Leaders of the Pack & Increasing Growth

In recent years, the game has grown particularly strongly also in Papua New Guinea and New Zealand where local player numbers are booming. In overall percentage terms their increases are high in comparison to the overall growth of the sport in Australia, however their total player numbers are at least 200 times less, making senior competition involving Australia at open level unlikely until at least 2020.
In 2005, after 8 years of growing domestic competition, the South African government declared Australian Rules Football the sport for "the new South Africa", injecting government funding into the sport.[6]
In 2006, Pakistan, Indonesia, Catalonia, Croatia, Norway, Bermuda and East Timor joined the list of playing nations with local players participating.
On July 3, 2006 the AFL announced that it had formed an International Development Committee to support overseas leagues. The AFL hopes to develop the game in other countries to the point where Australian football is played at an international level by top-quality sides from around the world. The AFL plans to host the International Cup regularly every four years, beginning in 2008, the 150th anniversary of the code.[7] Following the AFL's interest in the internationalisation of the game, coverage in the Australian media grew substantially.
On April 14, 2007, Australia's AIS Under 17 squad competed against the South African national Australian rules football team in the historic first international match between the two countries at North West Cricket Stadium in Potchefstroom, South Africa.[8] In the same month, a massive junior program called "Footy Wild", similar to Auskick was launched in the country

International competition

The first truly international competitor in Australian rules was New Zealand. In 1908 the Jubilee Australasian Football Carnival was held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Australian rules football. New Zealand (then representing a total of 115 clubs) defeated both New South Wales and Queensland in the carnival but lost to Victoria and Tasmania.
The Arafura Games, held in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia (a competition for northern Australia, South East Asia and Pacific Islands) were the first International games to have Australian football as a competition sport, rather than a demonstration sport in 1995. Papua New Guinea won the Gold medal and retained it in subsequent games. Other teams that have competed at Australian Rules in the games include Japan, Nauru and a Northern Territory indigenous team. The International Australian football Council (IAFC) was formed after the 1995 Games (source IAFC).
Inspired by successful Arafura Games competitions, the inaugural Australian Football International Cup was held in Melbourne in 2002, an initiative of the newly formed IAFC. The 2002 cup was contested by 11 teams from around the world made up exclusively of non-Australians. Ireland won the 2002 cup, defeating Papua New Guinea in the final.
In the interim years, Japan and New Zealand played an annual game as a curtain raiser to an AFL game: the New Zealand national team were victorious by 100 points in 2003, and so in 2004, a club side from Auckland played the game, which Japan lost by two points. The amateur Australian Convicts also toured and played several matches against sides from developing nations.
The second Australian football International Cup was held in Melbourne in 2005, under the direction of the guidance and funding of the AFL with New Zealand defeating Papua New Guinea in the final, with third place going to the United States of America.
The third Australian Football International Cup will be held in Melbourne in 2008.
In 2006 Denmark, Sweden and Germany competed in a tri-nations series, which will be repeted annually.
Other international competitions that include Australian ex-patriates are also held, including the EU Cup, which was first held in 2005 in London, featuring 10 teams. In 2007 was held in Hamburg with 12 teams.

Unofficial Football World Championships

The Unofficial Football World Championships (UFWC) is a way of calculating the world's best football team, using a knock-out title system similar to that used in boxing and wrestling. The title is currently held by Greece and the next defence of the title will take place against Hungary on 21 November 2007 [1].
The idea stemmed originally from some Scotland fans jokingly asserting that as they beat England (who had won the 1966 World Cup) in a British Home Championship match on April 15, 1967 - England's first loss after their World Cup victory - they were the Unofficial World Champions.
Many years later, a website was created to show results of research triggered by this idea. The website was featured in respected football magazine FourFourTwo, which gained it extra publicity. The FourFourTwo feature also suggested the compilation of an unofficial clubs' world championship.
It is not FIFA-sanctioned, nor does it have any sort of official backing.

Early days

The first ever international match was a "rather unexciting" 0-0 draw between England and Scotland, on November 30, 1872 at Hamilton Crescent. The Unofficial World Championship thus remained undecided until the same two teams met again at the Kennington Oval on March 8, 1873. England won 4-2, and so are regarded as having become the Unofficial Football World Champions. Wales entered the 'competition' in 1876, and Ireland in 1882. The Championship however, continued to swap between Scotland and England until March 1903, when Ireland beat Scotland 2-0. Wales won the title for the first time in March 1907, beating Scotland 1-0.
Scotland regained the Championship the following year, which saw England playing internationally. Scotland however, didn't do the same and so retained the title. By the end of 1909, England had taken the title and defended it outside of the British Isles for the first time.
Following partition, Ireland was to compete as Northern Ireland for the first time in 1923. The team went on to win for the first time in 1927, beating England 2-0.
The fact that none of the Home Nations teams competed in the 1930, 1934 or 1938 World Cups kept the title from travelling too far abroad, and the First and Second World Wars hindered football's globalisation process further.

1930s-2000

It was 1931 when the title was first passed outside the British Isles, to Austria. It was back with the home nations within four months, and for all but the last few months of the decade it was held by those four teams. In the 1940s the title was held by continental teams, notably those representing the Axis powers and countries neutral during World War II, but was recaptured by England in time for the 1950 World Cup. Here, in a shock result, they lost to the United States in one of the biggest upsets ever. This was the first venture of the title onto the Americas, where it remained for all but one of the following 16 years.
This time included the reign of the Netherlands Antilles, who beat Mexico 2-1 in a CONCACAF Championship match to become the smallest country ever to hold the title. The UFWC returned to Europe in time for the 1966 FIFA World Cup with the Soviet Union. As it happened, the England v Scotland match of 1967, which first gave rise to the idea of an unofficial world championship, really was a UFWC title match. The title stayed in Europe until 1978, when it was taken by Argentina's 1978 World Cup winning side. It remained in South America until the 1982 World Cup where Peru lost to Poland. The UFWC remained in Europe for the next ten years, except for a one year tenure by Argentina.
In 1992, the title returned to the United States and then was held for one match by Australia, and then worked its way through several South American nations, back through Europe and to its first Asian holders, South Korea. The Koreans lost the title to Yugoslavia at the first time of asking, and the UFWC remained in Europe until March 1998 when Germany lost it to Brazil in a friendly. Argentina then defeated Brazil in a friendly to carry the UFWC into the 1998 World Cup.
France repeated the feat of Argentina in 1978 by taking the title as they won the World Cup on home turf, beating Brazil. England took the title for the last time to date at UEFA Euro 2000. France and Spain enjoyed spells as champions before the Netherlands won the title in March 2002. As the Dutch had failed to qualify for the 2002 World Cup, the UFWC was, unusually, not at stake at the official World Cup. The Netherlands retained the title until September 10, 2003, when they lost 3-1 to the Czech Republic.

Full globalisation

The Czechs defended their title a few times, before losing it to the Republic of Ireland in a friendly. The title then went to an African nation for the first time, as they lost it to Nigeria. Minnows Angola won and kept this title through late 2004 and early 2005. They were then beaten by Zimbabwe, who held the title for six months before Nigeria re-gained it in October 2005. Nigeria were beaten by Romania who lost it to Uruguay within six months. Uruguay became the highest ranked team to hold the title since 2004, but their failure to qualify for the World Cup finals meant that, for the second time in a row, the unofficial title was not available at the official championships.

Return to Europe

The title was brought back to Europe by Georgia on 15 November 2006. They lost the title to the highest ranked team in the UWFC of all time, Scotland, on March 24, 2007, nearly forty years since Scotland had last gained the title, in the game against England at Wembley that had inspired the concept of the UFWC. Just four days later, Scotland conceded the title to FIFA World Cup holders Italy, and the title passed through the hands of Hungary and Turkey before being claimed by Greece.

Rankings table

Because of the unofficial nature of the title, there is no authoritative criteria for ranking the historical holders of the title. The UFWC website sorts teams by how many championship deciding matches they have won: others have used cumulative length of time holding the title, a points system for matches won, drawn and lost, or other methods.
This table ranks the teams according to the number of matches that they have started as title holders, and in the event of a tie, uses cumulative days as title holder and then length of time since the title was last held as second and third criteria

Rules

The first team to win an international football match were declared first ever Football World Champions.
The next match this team competes in is considered a title match, with the winners taking the title.
In the event of a title match being a draw, the current holders of the title remain champions. UFWC title matches are decided by their ultimate outcome, including extra time and penalties.
The title is passed on like so, with any FIFA accredited international 'A' match involving a title holder being considered a title match.
Title matches are contested under the rules of the governing body which they are sanctioned by.

Nasazzi's Baton
A similar virtual title, Nasazzi's Baton, traces the "championship" from the first World Cup winners Uruguay, after whose captain it is named. Nasazzi's Baton follows the same rules as the UFWC, except that it treats all matches according to their result after 90 minutes. Greece are the current holders of this title as well as the UFWC, the two titles having most recently been united when Netherlands, the UFWC holders, beat Nasazzi's baton champions Norway 1-0 in Oslo in a friendly on 21 August 2002.

Virtual World Championship

Another virtual title, the Virtual World Championship, operates along the same boxing-style lines but only counts matches in FIFA-recognised championships and their qualifying stages. This is to circumvent the criticism of the UFWC that because countries do not always play their strongest teams in non-competitive matches, the honour could be unwittingly lost by a sub-strength team. This title is traced from the 1908 Olympic final. Olympic competitions since 1936 are not considered, as full international teams ceased to take part after that tournament. The honour is currently held by Brazil, who won it from Argentina in the Copa América final on 15 July 2007, and will next defend it away to Peru in a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier on 18 November 2007. The Virtual World Championship treats all matches according to their result after 90 minutes.