Australian rules football in Asia
A. W. McLean founded the Seisoka Football Club and was successful in introducing it as a sport to four large high schools in Tokyo by having the rules translated into Japanese.
During the wars, matches were played primarily by Australian servicemen in several countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Vietnam and South Korea.
[9] The first international games in Asia started in the early 1990s (the Hong Kong Dragons played their first match the day after the 1990 AFL Grand Final.)
[6][10] The following leagues play within AFL Asia: The main tournament and cup competition is the annual Asian Australian Football Championships.
There are also clubs in the special economic development zones of Hong Kong and Macau that play against Chinese teams from Guangzhou and Guangdong in the South China Australian Football league (SCAFL), since 2011.
The first representative team composed entirely of Chinese nationals appeared at the 2008 Australian Football International Cup, competing as the China Red Demons.
The clinics and match were planned and implemented as team effort to build relations and trust between the local Timorese and Soldiers and Police on deployment between the Army and VICPOL members on secondment to the AFP, CPL Adam Bourke instigated the philanthropic activity and Captained the ISF Tigers to a 10-goal win in front of a curios crowd.
[19] The club managed to work with the Northern Territory Football League and Australian Volunteers International to get locals playing the game.
Lin Jong, of East Timorese heritage, debuted in 2011 and received a congratulatory letter from Timor Leste Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.
[42] In April 2018, AFLW player Jess Dal Pos visited Mumbai to conduct young girls clinics in the sport.
The Jakarta Bintangs and Bali Geckos regularly contest the Java-Bali Cup and participate in the Asian Australian Football Championships.
The 2023 AFL Asia All-Asian teams for the Indonesia Volcanoes:[1] Men's Division 1 Alfie Giles, Peter Macfarlane, Michael Latpeirissa, Jay Giller, and Oliver Lilford Australian rules football in Japan is coordinated by the AFL Japan, with a national league based mainly in Tokyo (affiliated with the Australian Football League) but with clubs in Osaka, Nagoya and Hiroshima.
Development teams from the AFL Japan regularly tour to Australia and have competed at all Australian Football International Cups to date.
The Lao Elephants impressed many by defeating archrivals Vietnam and Thailand on debut at the Asian Australian Football Championships in Singapore in September 2008.
Later, the "Phants" were victorious in the Mekong Cup held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on 22 November 2008, involving the Cambodian Kangaroos, Thailand Tigers, Vietnam Swans and Lao Elephants.
The first domestic match in Laos was held in May 2009, with the Northerners (squad members based in Vientiane and Luang Prabang) defeating the Southerners (mine workers from the Sepon area) in Savannakhet.
With an increasing demand for more football from the kids participating, the club started Saturday morning training which continues to grow with boys and girls aged between 4 and 13 years.
The club was initially known as the MARK Tigers (Malaysian Australian Rules Kelab) and the team played their first game in February 1993 against Hong Kong in Kuala Lumpur and first toured to Singapore in July 1993.
The Asian economic crisis of 1998 saw many members of the Australian community in Malaysia return home, leaving the club in great difficulties.
[69] The Warriors also participate in an annual five match series of International Rules games against the Orang Éire Gaelic Football Club.
The most notable results for the Warriors to date have been the 2012 Manila Cup winners, Premiers of Asia in 2013 and 2015, and runner up in the 2015 Asian Australian Football Championships .
In 2016 they contested the Manila Cup and the 2016 Asian Australian Football Championships as well as various home and away games most notably the 2016 Anzac Day clash against the Thailand Tigers in Kanchanaburi.
AFL Pakistan (connected with an anti-drug charity network) was formed to govern the sport and select the national team, which has participated in the Australian Football International Cup every tournament since 2014.
[75] Australia sent a coach to assist Pakistan in 2019[76] however the sport's rapid growth in popularity was greatly outpacing local officials ability to support it.
Interest in Australian rules in Sri Lanka dates back to 1910, with a failed proposal for the Young Australia League to tour Colombo.
Manel Dharmakeerthie and Milton Amarasinghe, a former Director General of Sports, worked together to develop Australian Football in Sri Lanka.
Every year for Anzac Day, the Tigers invite an international club for a special match commemorating the memory of the prisoners-of-war (POW) working on the Hellfire Pass, part of the Burma Railway, during World War II.
[105] In 1971, Australian Force Vietnam (AFV) and 110 Signal Squadron played a match in Saigon organised by Private Conboy of Clifton Hill, Victoria a previous member of Melbourne Football Club Under 19s squad.
Players from this squad eventually formed the Elgar Park Dragons, a team mainly made up of Vietnamese-Australians affiliated with Box Hill North in the Victorian Amateur Football Association.
A number of Vietnamese members of the Elgar Park Dragons also played for Team Asia at the 2008 Australian Football International Cup.
