American Football Wellington - Ambassadors Cup Competition

The Ambassadors Cup Competition is AFW's annual flagship American football senior competition, which generally takes place from early November through February. The competition was previously known as the Southern Zone competition and started in 1991 with three teams (Harbour City Hurricanes, Hutt Valley Chargers and Capital City Giants) competing in the inaugural season. The Hutt Valley Chargers won the inaugural Southern Zone competition and were awarded the Southern Zone Championship Cup, which was presented by former United States of America’s Ambassador, Dean Newman in 1992.

The competition name was changed to the Ambassadors Cup Competition alongside with the name of the trophy to that of the same name, prior to the 2004-2005 season. The Ambassadors Cup competition format is a Round-Robin that generally runs for 10 weeks with every team facing each other twice. The AFW uses a Points System to decide who is awarded the Ambassadors Cup at the end of the regular season. The team with highest number of competition points, based on the points system wins the Ambassadors Cup.

The AFW Points System:

• Four (4) points are awarded for a win
• Two (2) point for a draw
• One (1) point for a loss by seven (7) or fewer points

The number of teams competing in the Ambassadors Cup competition determines the number of teams that will qualify for post-season matches including the Capital Bowl championship game. The post season formula is as follows:

• 3 Team Competition – (2 teams maximum qualify) - 1st and 2nd – Capital Bowl
• 4 Team Competition – (2 teams maximum qualify) - 1st and 2nd – Capital Bowl
• 5 Team Competition – (3 teams maximum qualify) - 3rd v 2nd (Elimination) - Winner v 1st in Capital Bowl
• 6 Team (or more) Competition – (4 teams maximum qualify) - 1st v 4th & 2nd v 3rd (Semi) – Winners in Capital Bowl OR 1st v 2nd (Game 1) & 3rd v 4th (Game 2), Game 1 loser v Game 2 winner (Game 3) – Game 3 winner v Game 1 winner in Capital Bowl.