Australian Rules Football

Australian rules football (also known as Aussie rules or Footy in Australia) is a game played between two teams of 18 players on cricket ovals, or similar-sized areas. The game is distinguished from other kinds of football by the fast, relatively free movement of the ball (partly due to the absence of an offside rule) and the awarding of a free kick for any clean catch - known as a mark - of a ball which has been kicked more than 15 metres.

Australian rules was invented in Melbourne, and its top-level league is the Australian Football League (AFL). Professional pre-season competitions usually begin in late February, although the "football season" proper is from March to August, with finals being held in September.

The game is the most popular sport in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. In Queensland and New South Wales (NSW) the main winter sports are rugby league and rugby union, although with the establishment of successful Australian Football League teams in Sydney and Brisbane, this is changing to some degree. In recent years a boom in the sport has occurred in Brisbane, which appears to be closely linked to the success of the Brisbane Lions, who won three Premierships in a row (2001-2003), and were runners-up in 2004.

Cricket is the most common summer spectator sport in Australia, and is usually played on the same grounds as Aussie Rules. In the past, many elite-level footballers played representative cricket, but the increasingly professional nature of the game made this impossible by the 1980s. Many amateur and school-level players still play both.

Unlike most soccer competitions, there are no separate "league" and "cup" trophies (although there is a pre-season Wizard Cup tournament). The teams that occupy the highest positions (usually four in most amateur leagues, but eight in the AFL) play off in a "semi-knockout" finals series (in the AFL, the top four sides get a second chance if they lose their first final), with the two successful teams meeting to contest the premiership. This is decided by one game, the Grand Final.