20,000 South Africans to play aussie rules by 2010

[yob]

At least many thousands of juniors are playing Australian Football and are taking the game of Australain football up an accelerating rate . With the AFL now being shown in South Africa and the upcoming AFL NAB games being played there , South Africans might start caring about AFL as well .

Interesting to note that when the WCE trained in RSA and conducted AFL clinics
Whoosha predicted that RSA would be WAFL standard soon .

Didn't know WA football was going that badly.

[Egan]

Subiaco has already invested its own money into coaching clinics in South Africa. I am just wondering what on earth for, unless it is only to increase the brand name of Subiaco.

[Egan]

Owned by Subiaco Football Club?

Subiaco had funded the whole trip by themselves, without the AFL or WAFC commission.

However they had consultation with the AFL for the coaching clinics. Maybe it is to look at players in the region...probably testing the area out for a regular season WAFL game, rather then a team being based out of South Africa.

Its a 9 hour flight to Perth from Johannesburg...so I doubt getting a WAFL team is sustainable at the moment.

[Egan]

Subiaco Football Club on its main website said it had done Auskick Clinics in assocation with the AFL Development Officer. Subiaco have taken as big a leap as any of the AFL teams into South Africa.

And it will be very interesting to see how it develops...one thing you have to congratulate about Subiaco, despite the rorting of the cap, they are a very progressive football club.

My opinion is that the costs for Subiaco, other then big noting itself, was not worth it. It received little promotion (came across it on their website). There is no regular coverage of games that can be watched weekly in South Africa to entrench the marketability of games and all it did was do coaching clinics.

I would be quite interested to see the 'real' reason of the exhibition, rather then just trying to build the code up in South Africa.

[Egan]

Got told it was really just a club funded holiday for the players. Ends my conspiracy theory.

[hot_dogma]

I note there are no FIFA World Cup games scheduled in the seat of power of Australian football in South Africa.

[nobleoz]

Australian Football 1 soccer 0

[Jeffles]

Actually, there are hundreds of professional soccer players from South Africa.

[Simmo79]

Western Cape shows the way for AFL South Africa

Sunday, December 27 2009 @ 08:12 AM EST

http://www.worldfootynews.com/article.p ... 5171220333
Contributed by: Brett

Views: 615

The Western Cape Province of South Africa has quickly risen from having no Aussie Rules players to recently winning the 2009 National Provincial Championships (see Western Cape - new chiefs of African footy?). With all four of the country's active football provinces now benefiting from AFL and AFL club support, how is it that Western Cape has leap-frogged the more established regions of North West and Gauteng, along with fellow newcomers KwaZulu-Natal? worldfootynews.com poses a simple theory.

It seems that a key may be a regular active league. Back in 2007 junior development was underway but a decision was made to fast-track plans and get two open age sides started. Soon Nyanga and Khayelitsha were up and competing.

It didn't stop there. In 2008 the competition consisted of four sides:

Nyanga Bluebirds
Nyanga Thunderstorm
Khayelitsha Divines
Khayelitsha Real Kangaroos

and then in 2009 it grew with the addition of two further teams:

Mitchell Plains Warriors
Gugulethu Cheetahs

For fans and players in Australia, having a local league with weekly competition is often an unappreciated luxury. It's only when you get to country areas that people sometimes have to travel long distances for a game of footy. In many other countries that remains the case, with few cities featuring well established leagues.

In South Africa the situation is exacerbated by many of the players having little means of transport. This makes it hard for organisers in areas like North West province to provide their players with a regular league. The answer of course lies in getting enough junior numbers so that eventually even smaller cities can have many teams. But in fairly lowly populated areas like much of North West, there will still always be issues.

The Western Cape set up is different. Cape Town as whole has a population of around 3.5 million and Khayelitsha in the Cape Flats area has approximately 2 million residents. We spoke to AFL South Africa's Joel Kelly, and he explained that the six senior teams of Western Cape are "about 20 to 30 minutes drive apart at the furthest point". This allows organisers to stage a weekly competition of 12 rounds plus finals, which "includes a mid-year break of four weeks when the weather is pretty ordinary".

The league is also a full 18-a-side competition, and with players getting exposed to 12 to 15 full games in a season, surely this is the secret to their success. For all the training a player can get, unless it's akin to the intense match simulation available at AFL level, then nothing beats week-in and week-out matches. It's also possible there could be some physique differences between the average player from each province, but we haven't been able to determine that yet.

The teams in the Cape league also provide a ready pathway for the many youngsters in the FootyWILD junior programs, and thought has been given to aligning some junior clubs with the seniors in 2010. Exciting times for Australian football in South Africa, and it seems especially so in Western Cape.

some much needed context to the 20,000 number in the title

[gyfox]

With 1,500,000 registered football players and another 3,000,000 non registered players I would expect that SAFA would be quaking in their boots at the rate of uptake of Aussie Rules.
http://www.fifa.com/associations/associ ... yInfo.html

[hot_dogma]

It's the new game of the people...

[yob]

200,000 players in 6 teams?

Dream Team paradise. 4 points per tackle.

[the crow]

^ thats why nobody watches it ove there though....the reserve bench must take the entire stadium

[Egan]

http://www.smh.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl- ... -r00q.html

Thankfully my tax dollars are still paying off my Fee Help Loan...

[Jeffles]

Maybe this is why there's such an epidemic in South Africa. There must be millions of kids there saying "who the hell is Chris Judd and why is he telling me to use a franga?"

The Australian Rugby League and AusAID have a relationship in Papua New Guinea, trying to prevent the spread of HIV-AIDS. At least the locals there know who Jonathon Thurston is.