Australian Football League (AFL) is the name of both the sport and the competition.

AFL is a sport that was developed in the state of Victoria in the late 1890s. It is almost exclusively played in Australia with 16 teams playing in the League. It was originally called Victorian Football League but was renamed in 1990 to reflect the sports national standing. AFL is arguably the most popular sports in Australia, with spectator attendance to games beating all other team sports.

How do you play?

The basic rules are that points are scored one of two ways: through the highest posts (6 Points) or to the side of these posts but inside the two smaller posts (1 point).

The game is fast with no off sides and with kicking as common as punting for a form of passing the oval shaped ball. The time is divided into 4 quarters of 20 mins and there are only 15 players from each team allowed on the oval field at anyone time.

The field itself is no smaller than 135m long and 110m wide.

Fans of the sport are very committed to their teams and wear their team's colours in proudly. The most common form of team clothing is the beanie (a type of hat) and scarf, a reflection of the winter conditions the sport is played in.

Half of the teams are located around Melbourne and these teams represent the most popular and well attended games. These teams include: Essendon, North Melbourne, Melbourne, Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond, Hawthorn and St Kilda. Sydney's AFL home team are the Sydney Swans and Swans player, Jared Crouch is a WYD Ambassador.

Image courtesy of seabob (Creative Commons License), Flickr.