AFA Agrees To Forego National Championship Game In Order For Its Top Rated Teams To Continue Playing In Postseason Regional Tournaments

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The American Football Association announced today that it has cancelled its previously scheduled date of January 14th for hosting the national association's 26th annual National Championship Game. The decision was made to allow the association's top rated teams to participate against league champions and other highly rated teams from their regional areas and advance to play against tournament champs from a number of season ending tournament championships.

"With all the postseason regional championships now taking place from coast-to-coast, we have simply run out of time trying to host an AFA national championship game for the last two teams standing at the conclusion of the postseason tournaments", stated the AFA President Ron Real. "To our knowledge there are as many as 8 different postseason national type tournaments being conducted across the country this year - with most of them culminating on January 14th - and many of them in Florida and California - for obvious reasons",

While the AFA's original plan was to have the top rated AFA team in the Summer/Spring category play against the top rated team in the Fall category on January 14th for the AFA national title - both of those teams, Daly City California Renegades and the Albany New York Mallers, expressed their intent to continue playing in the various post-season tournaments that they had been previously invited to attend.

"With neither of the top two teams available to participate in the AFA title game on January 14th, we decided to cancel the game date rather than offer it to second and third place teams. This was done out of respect for the decision the Mallers and the Renegades made to gather as much season ending credibility as possible in route to a national title by playing, and hopefully winning those postseason tournaments they agreed to enter months ago", continued Real.

To facilitate crowning a 2005 AFA National Championship team, the AFA will simply extend its power rating program through the conclusion of the independent postseason tournaments on January 14th - giving an additional opportunity for all AFA league championship teams to qualify for the AFA national title. The five top rated AFA league champions going into post season tournament play are the Empire League Champion Albany NY Metro Mallers (16-0); the Mason-Dixon League Champion Virginia Ravens (16-0); the California Golden State League Champion Daly City Renegades (16-1), the Mid-Continental League Champion Detroit Seminoles (12-1) and the Southern States Football League Champion(12-2) Hernando Florida Eagles.

Four of these league championship teams are currently competing in regional tournament action with the hope of extending their season ending power rating and an opportunity to be crowned the American Football Association's 2005 National Championship team. The AFA reminds member teams that are still in contention for the title, that the power rating will not be the lone determining factor for selecting its 2005 National Championship team now that the teams have entered postseason tournament play.

The Milwaukee Wisconsin Bulldogs (11-1) won the Ironman (AA) league playoff title and ended their season as the AFA's top rated AA team with 220 points for and only 10 points against. Their #1 rating has earned the Bull Dogs the AFA's 'Double A' National Championship team title for the 2005 semi-pro football season.