The AFL today confirmed that India will send a team to this year's International Cup. Two AFL India board members, Ravinder Chadha and Pranab Bhattacharya were last week able to attend a coaching course at AFL House along with two Chinese delegates. This is a promising step, with India's previous attempts to send delegates to Australia hampered by visa difficulties.

Chadha predicted "rapid growth" for football in India in the next five years, and expressed his desire to see Australian football played in several of India's major population centres. He highlighted the possibility of matches against neighbouring China and nearby Japan (no mention of Pakistan was made) and even suggested that famous cricket stadiums such as Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium or Kolkata's Eden Gardens, with the capacity to hold tens of thousands of spectators, might be sought out to host an AFL exhibition match in a few years time. If successful this would be a big win, as in the past the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been unwilling to open their facilities for external use. Ironically, the Indian cricket team were given Australian football lessons during their recent tour of Australia.

Football's growth in India was initiated by ex-Melbourne footballer Brian Dixon on his 2006 World Tour.

The Convicts' Anthony Nanfra has contacted WFN to let our readers know that he's produced a short "virtual tour" of the grounds where round 1 and 2 of the 2008 International Cup will be played, in Melbourne's inner northern suburbs.

Anth looks at the four large ovals that make up the park - McAlister, Ransford, Ryder and Western Ovals. His video can be viewed on Youtube here: IC Cup Ground tour.

More information on the grounds is available in our earlier story: Royal Park North.

In today's article on preparations for the Australian Football International Cup (also often referred to as the AFL International Cup or de facto Aussie Rules World Cup) we start to look at support such as transport and apparel for the competing nations.

As we've mentioned previously, the Australian Football League is developing its news page for the 2008 Australian Football International Cup. They've now registered a new domain that will redirect to that page. Hopefully users will find it a convenient shortcut. The page also has photos and video from the 2005 event (the captains are pictured at left), and we're told that "the site will be updated with lots of stories about the history of the Cup as well as up-to-date news on all the competing countries".

ic08.com.au

Let's hope that as the Cup draws nearer (just six months to go) the AFL can find space for the Cup logo on the front page, directing general readers to the tournament.

The Peres Center for Peace football team continues to attract media attention, with the latest article in the The Jerusalem Post.

This unique concept sees a group of Israelis and Palestinians, previously unfamiliar with Australian football, come together to learn the rules and then compete at this years International Cup. For several members of the team, it is their first real interaction with a Palestinian or Israeli and the article is an interesting read. It also raises the possibility of an Australian football competition in Israel once the International Cup is over.

Follow the story so far:
Israeli-Palestinian "Peres Peace Team" for IC 2008?
Israel-Palestine "Peres Peace Team" one step closer to IC 08
Peres Peace team under way
Teamwork goes for goal: peace
DiPierdomenico to coach Israel-Palestine Peace Team at IC

Robert "Dipper" DiPierdomenico has been named as the match-day coach for the Peres Peace Team at this year's 2008 International Cup.

Dipper was a colorful figure in professional Aussie Rules in the 1980s, as one of the stars of a Hawthorn team that dominated the decade.

He has since become a major on-screen personality in media coverage of the AFL, and has visited the US Nationals and previous International Cups.

The Convicts tour group have announced plans for a 2008 tour to Melbourne and Warrnambool. The plan is for something of a reunion gathering centred on the 2008 Australian Football International Cup. They're hoping it will help swell crowd numbers turning out to watch the tournament.

The ambitious plan to bring a combined Israeli-Palestinian team to the 2008 Australian Football International Cup in Victoria appears to be well under way. The concept is based on a similar team that has toured the world playing soccer, but has the added complexity that for the players, Aussie Rules is a completely foreign game.

Athletes with strong soccer and basketball backgrounds have been targeted, and 75 are now in training, from which 35 to 40 will be selected to represent Israel-Palestine. The side will compete in the second division of the Cup. Beyond the challenges of a foreign game, historical conflict and the need to have the rules translated into Hebrew and Arabic, the players have also faced a lockdown on the West Bank when US President George Bush visited the area, and a massive snowstorm that prevented training in Jerusalem.

You can read more about the newest team to hit world footy in Making the impossible possible, by Chelsea Roffey, on the AFL website. In good news for footy, Roffey, from Media Giants, will be working with the AFL to expand coverage of international Australian Football leading up to, and through, the International Cup. As per 2005, worldfootynews.com will also be providing material to the AFL, and plans are under way between the three groups to pool resources to make the third Cup the best covered yet.

In another small but promising step for the promotion of this year's International Cup, Andrew Sawitsch (working for the Melbourne Demons and Melbourne City Council) has released a Chinese language flyer for the tournament, based on one produced by the AFL. So where does Sawitsch see it being used? "We'll use it for our players, supporters and government groups over here (in China) to give them a bit of background on the tournament. Melbourne Football Club and (the) AFL Multicultural Department can hopefully circulate it around as well from now until August". One would hope to at least see them around Chinatown in Melbourne.

Hopefully a poster campaign around Melbourne will be included in the event promotion, as they seem to be quite effective at raising interest. If the AFL doesn't put out such posters, maybe international footy fans in Victoria will take up the task themselves?

Chinese language poster

Sawitsch has recently returned to Australia to attend the AFL coaching conference on the Gold Coast, where he told media about two Chinese players that will join the Melbourne Demons for their Community Camp in Canberra.

"The two guys I’m bringing out to Melbourne – one is a child prodigy in martial arts but there really isn’t a career in that, and the other is soccer goalkeeper, where there aren’t that many opportunities in China unless you are really good," Sawitsch said.

Full article is: Football's bid to break into China

The AFL has updated their International Cup page, with basic details of the tournament (mostly as previously reported here). In 2005 the Cup featured on their website through a mixture of stories from worldfootynews.com and other sources. Let's hope the coverage in 2008 surpasses those levels, but with the AFL finals on, it will be interesting to see how much front page space is dedicated to the tournament. Still, the amount of attention given to international footy in 2007 has been excellent, which augers well for the years ahead.

In other online news, a new International Cup Facebook group has been created, and don't forget to tell your Facebook friends about the World Footy group (note you do have to join Facebook to access either site).