Rival codes likely to kick venues in to help bid

Australia’s 2018 World Cup bid has received a huge boost, with rival football codes set to allow soccer first access to the venues it needs to host the tournament.

The World Cup finals are traditionally held over a month from June to July - right in the middle of the AFL and NRL seasons.

But what was set to be one of the major sticking points to Australia’s ability to properly host the tournament - access to multi-purpose venues used for AFL and rugby league - looks to have been removed.

It is understood AFL, rugby league and rugby union have given their support to schedule around the 10 venues soccer would need to host the showpiece tournament.

AFL’s demand for stadia during their season, especially in Melbourne, was looming as the biggest problem.

But a meeting this week between the AFL and Football Federation Australia is understood to have agreed on several possible compromises.

The most likely scenario in Melbourne is that the AFL will allow World Cup matches to be staged at the MCG and keep Telstra Dome for its home-and-away fixtures.

The new 32,000-seat rectangular soccer and rugby league stadium being built in Melbourne by 2010 would be beefed up in capacity to the 40,000 level it needs to fulfill World Cup regulations.

As well as two Melbourne venues, Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium and Sydney’s ANZ Stadium and the Sydney Football Stadium would be certain starters to host matches.

But Adelaide and Perth would require new stadia or substantially upgraded ones, while Newcastle and the Gold Coast are also being considered as possible match hosts.

The spirit of camaraderie from other football codes would also satisfy another important requirement from soccer’s world governing body FIFA - that the World Cup bid is seen to have complete national support.

FFA chief executive Ben Buckley was tight-lipped on the specifics of the bid and any meetings with other codes.

But he said the FFA was very happy with how the bid was progressing and had been working hard to have as much in place as possible by the time FIFA unveiled the bidding process next month.

“We’ve put a fairly substantial submission forward to the Federal Government,” Buckley said this week.

“There’s work going on behind the scenes in terms of organisational planning, tactical planning, technical planning, so we’ve very happy with where we’re at.”

A FIFA executive committee meeting in Tokyo on December 19 will hammer out exact details of the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids.

A final decision on the winning 2018 bid - and possibly the 2022 bid as well - will be made by mid-2011.

Other expressions of interest to host the tournament have come from China, England, Russia, United States, Spain, Qatar and Mexico, with the latest a combined Netherlands-Belgium bid announced this week.

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