30,000 mate. Read it and weep.

I hate to make you feel bad, but that still isnt all that much

Oh yes its significant. Im all for promoting the gains, but i dont think we should boast about anything until after the soccer world cup. After the soccer world cup has gone, and soccer has put back to normal in the newspapers, then we can start talking about how much football is being taken up by the loacls. Just my opinion though. It always seems like you are accusing people on the net hey....lol

see...i told you...i was meaning everyone!! alot of posts are read in a way that sounds like the poster is accusing someone

Id hate to say this guys and ruin it for you, but AFL will never become big anywhere in the world...
It will only be big in Australia... As a south African said himself previously, they don't care about AFL...
The AFL should concentrate on making it right here, not having some kids participate in a kick around which means nothing to them..
AFL continues to be an unfair competition, we should look at extending the season so everyone plays each other twice throughout the year.. 16 teams does not go with 22 games..

AFL should not worry about trying to make this big in other countries, b/c it WILL NEVER happen... make the game even better here, that should be the plan...

I see that you have looked into the AFL's crystal ball which predicted that 30,000 kids will participate in Auskick by the year 2009... Very believable b/c it has come from the AFL so you read it and weeped...

So what proof do you have that 30,000 will participate and the sport will be huge all over the world b/c the AFL says so... nothing... apart from some c.rap stories in papers that believe AFL is the only football around...

The evidence that the AFL will not grow any further is that they are doing nothing to even up the competition, players continue to act unprofessional and do stupid things yet the AFL wouldn't have a clue what to do about it... That's just 2 major issues I think they need to concentrate on and improve.

that's just my opinion...

About the future. I could predict something as follows.... By the time of 2048, soccer violence in Italy had reached such heights that the government were forced to act. They were forced to act because of the violent sniper massacre of the visiting EPL champion Huddersfield after Juventus were beaten 3-0 in a quarter final. They were forced to act because the Juventus cheer squad security team were threatening to use their lasser guns to attack the Serie A headquarters if they were relegated. The government today released a statement from its underground bunker stating that they would ban soccer in schools and on FTA tv, and that all games would take place in the heavily fortifified anti-missile protected ***** Smith Stadium. They announced a plan to introduce a compulsory Aussieball program to enable the country to compete against the current champions England in the upcoming International Cup.

You never know it could happen!!

I was merely reinforcing the view that the future is unpredicatable, but there are events which set things on their path. Like the AFL in SA, and the italian soccer riots.

You are a complete idiot.... what's Italian soccer riots got to do with AFL trying to introduce aussie rules to South Africa... (stop trying to bring other sports down just b/c the sport you may like is less superior)...
It will fail just like the experiment with the Irish b/c AFL will never be big outside of Australia...
That's just something you will have to get used to b/c it seems that you believe it will soon be the biggest sport in the world... no chance of that ever happening (no crystal balls required)...

I can't believe you are saying that based on the Irish series the game will never grow nor be popular any where else especially when you consider that the Irish games are not a real sport but a hybrid of two different codes. There seems to be some interest in South Africa and it would be silly for the AFL to ignore it. Will Aussie Rules ever knock Soccer off as the most popular code across the world no it won't but that doesn't mean they can't try and spread the code to other countries.