Australian rules football in the Middle East describes the minority sport of Australian rules football as it is watched and played in the Middle East region.
The sport is played at various levels, mainly by expatriate Australians. The main cup competition played in the area is the Dubai 9s, although a regional league under the name AFL Middle East which commenced in October 2008, with the inaugural 2008/09 premiers being the Dubai Heat. The AFLME initially featured six clubs, three in Dubai and one each from Abu Dhabi, Muscat and Doha.
Australian football is not known as a spectator sport in the Middle East. The first Australian Football League exhibition match was played in the United Emirates in 2008. The only matches broadcast are AFL matches (particularly the AFL Grand Final) on satellite television in some countries through the Australia Network and on cable television in Israel.
Read more about Australian Rules Football In The Middle East: Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Israel and Palestine, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Middle Eastern Performance At International Cup
Famous quotes containing the words australian, rules, football, middle and/or east:
“Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at work—the only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.”
—Vance Palmer (1885–1959)
“Although none of the rules for becoming more alive is valid, it is healthy to keep on formulating them.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion.”
—Robert Runcie (b. 1921)
“Sublime tobacco! which from east to west
Cheers the tar’s labour or the Turkman’s rest.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)