Could Spain get its first AFLE team?

Spain has a real bid for a place in the AFLE, though nothing is signed. On Saturday 31 October the league's new chief executive, Jim Tomsula, was at the Estadio Ciudad de Málaga to see Team Andalucía Football, a new Málaga-based club that wants to join. According to the club, around 50 players from across Andalucía trained in front of him. He then ran a technical session with them and sat down for meetings about organisation, facilities and possible funding.

He told 101TV: "We want Spain to be part of the AFLE project. We're very interested in it. However it works, one team, two, three…" ("Queremos que España sea parte del proyecto AFLE. Estamos muy interesados en ello. Como sea, un equipo, dos, tres…"). He said the club had invited him and that the league wants "a conversation with the teams and the players". He also said it was Alejandro Fernández, a player he'd coached and who is "like part of the family", who told him about football in Spain and helped persuade him to come. 101TV goes as far as saying his intention is to bring Team Andalucía into the league.

The club is very young. Diario Sur reports that it started as an idea for an Andalusian regional team; according to sporting director Juan Antonio Rejano the Andalusian federation then pulled out, so it carried on as a private club, with Gatorade and El Corte Inglés among its sponsors. More than 100 players went to trials in Jerez, Sevilla and Málaga, and 50 made the final roster. Its first official training session was on the day of Tomsula's visit. In October Rejano told the paper that "the European league is interested in us competing", and the stated aim is to join the AFLE next season, which would make it the first Spanish team in the league. For now, 101TV says, the squad is training and looking for friendlies.

Nothing has been agreed. The club's own press release, put out on 2 November, says the visit is not a definitive agreement and does not confirm a place for next season; the two sides are still talking about the sporting, organisational and financial requirements. Neither the AFLE nor the club has announced a deal, and until one of them does this is a bid only. Read the local coverage with care. Málaga al Día's report on the visit says the club is aiming for the "European League of Football", which is a different league from the AFLE.

The chief executive went in person, less than a week after taking the job, and said "one team, two, three" on the record. That is more than a courtesy call. Málaga has a stadium, good air links and, as Rejano puts it, plenty of foreign visitors. The hard part is what those meetings were about, the money and the structure behind a club like this. One official training session in, it has a long way to go before it can play a full season against the likes of Vienna and Rhein Fire.