The AFL's General Manager for International Development, Dave Matthews, with Kevin Sheedy last year.

Last Friday, the AFL’s General Manager of International Development wrote to the Asian Footy Clubs regarding the footy extravaganza weekend which will be happening in Shanghai later this year. Against the backdrop of the World Expo, the 11th Annual Asian Champs will be played on Saturday 16 October and the following day, Melbourne shall play Brisbane in an exhibition match.

Dear Friends of the AFL,

We at the AFL are pleased to write to keep you updated on the latest progress for the Kaspersky Cup Match between Melbourne and Brisbane.

Most of you would already know Andrew Sawitsch from his time in Beijing/Tianjin and with the AFL China team at the 2008 AFL International Cup. Andrew is now living in Shanghai and working for the AFL in preparing for the game in October. Particularly Andrew will be implementing the AFL Community Program that we have developed in partnership with the Yangpu District Government. This will involve 500 children at 5 Schools and 2 Universities all of whom will be involved at activities pre-game and half time at our game in October.

The AFL has received strong indication of a full involvement by the two clubs during their stay in Shanghai and we look to include the Asian Champs in those contacts particularly on the Saturday when your games are on.

Both Clubs are bringing their full list of players and coaches as well as extended supporter groups which should give us a chance to plan other activities around the game once we confirm final travel times. At this stage it is intended that the Clubs will be in Shanghai for the period Oct 13-18 and they will travel to other parts of China either before (Melb) or after (Bris) to build on the benefits and experience they can offer their playing group.

For the promotion of the Kaspersky Cup itself the AFL has appointed Andrew Collins (Mailmanchina.com) to implement a media strategy to promote AFL, the game and the match. The media strategy will be internet based and no doubt Andrew, who is well known to the Shanghai Tigers group, will keep all the AFL Asia teams in the loop of how to support his program via the strong social networks in China.

The involvement of all who normally play and support the AFL Asian Champs is essential to the success of our Shanghai excursion. We are keen to include admission to the Kaspersky Cup as part of the participation fees for the Asian Champs and we will work with the Championships Committee for the best way to deliver that. It is important that all the AFL supporters in Shanghai attend the game so that we are able to gain respect and then be able to increase the support we can provide to all involved in future seasons.

Clearly the Expo in Shanghai together with the AFL Asian Champs and Kaspersky Cup opens the opportunity to widen the attendance to that which would normally attend the Asian Champs. Hopefully those involved will perhaps include family and friends in the trip to have a great time in China. But planning is essential as is conduct during such events. China does have conditions that all groups have to meet. Those conditions are relevant to the visa applications but also conduct when we have AFL on display. We urge early attention to the application for China visa but importantly be mindful of conduct at events where we will have many guests including Government officials from both China and Australia.

The Kaspersky Cup will have an alcohol plan in place and we have to deal with local security which is very nervous about large crowds and behaviour at events. So we will be asking all those attending our AFL related events to not act in a manner that brings us down. The AFL does have a policy of responsible serving of alcohol and we trust we have your support.

We will try and provide regular updates of our plans and trust that all our efforts together will see a great festival of AFL in Shanghai in October.

Best Wishes

David Matthews
AFL General Manager International Development