Women’s American Football is growing worldwide

From June 24 to 30, in Langley, BC in Canada, a total of 270 women in six teams came together for the IFAF Women’s European Championship. They were all seeking to be crowned as the global top women’s football team. As expected, The United States team won the tournament, defeating Canada in the final.

In fact, out of the six teams, only Canada and the United States had realistic shots of being in the final game. Two more teams had considerable international experience which are Britain and Finland. In the 2015 IFAF European Championship The British had finished to them second while in the two previous Women’s World Championship the Finns had Australia finished third. The final two were unknown quantities for playing in their first international championship include Mexico and Australia which had garnered considerable publicity by securing the first woman to coach with an NFL team, Dr. Jenn Welter as their head coach, but Mexico was a total cipher.

United States has advantage in numbers

The USA also had advantage in home rules. The games were played under NCAA rules with 11-women-a-side. Many Canadian teams play with 12-women-a-side pre-snap motion allowed and a larger field, using CFL rules. DL Jasmin Collins, who on day 1 of the championship played her first football game against Canada, was the Player of the Game for the team’s last game against Finland. For the Australian teams, they have only nine teams with 7 or 9 players, that have been playing for just five years. Depending on where a woman plays for 19 British teams, 7-a-side teams played the regular season, 11-a-side teams drafted from the regular teams with the final Diamond Series contested. The Finnish women play more effectively internationally have transitioned from 7 or 9 players to 11-a-side despite having begun playing football in 2008.The Mexicans have only recently started play for women, but many of Mexican women play with 8 women teams in arenas.

Recruitment of the North Korea from the East Asia Football League

The world sports community was buzzed again after the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea decided to withdraw from an international women’s soccer tournament in December in South Korea.

The information was released by the Korea Football Association (KFA) on October 29, two weeks after Pyongyang hosted the second World Cup 2022 qualifier in an almost empty stadium and separated from the afterlife. Accordingly, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea decided to withdraw from the Women’s Football Championship of the East Asia Football Federation (EAFF) because it was held in the port city of Busan, South Korea.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was once a major force in women’s football in the region when it won the last 3 tournaments and currently ranks 9th in the world. “We have been informed by EAFF that North Korea will not be coming to Korea for the tournament. We do not know at this time why North Korea made that decision”, the KFA representative told AFP. This person also revealed that a similar notice was sent by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in September. Accordingly, the Taiwanese female recruit will replace the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to compete together with China, Japan and host South Korea.

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The latest decision made by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea after a historic match with South Korea in Pyongyang in the second round of the 2022 World Cup on October 15 became a controversial topic. This is the first time that two men’s soccer teams from the two nations have met in Pyongyang due to the fact that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and South Korea are still in a state of technical war.

In the match, Pyongyang did not allow home fans or visitors, nor foreign media to attend. The match was also not broadcast live despite the presence of FIFA President Gianni Infantino, one of the few spectators on the field of Kim Il-sung. After the match, Infantino said he was disappointed at the match and surprised because there were no fans and a lack of media coverage.

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Facing fears of being separated from the outside world, the Asian Football Federation has also decided to transfer the AFC Cup 2019 final between Club 4.25 (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and Al Ahed (Lebanon) from Pyongyang to Malaysia takes place on January 4.

Earlier, Pyongyang’s nuclear talks with Washington were at a standstill and increased tensions on the Korean peninsula. However, public opinion in the world still hopes that the sports diplomacy between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and South Korea can ease tensions between the two countries after the actions of establishing joint sports, together with marching under the uniform flag in the Winter Olympics, ASIAD last year.