Our World Cup bid lacking a united vision
Columnist
By Adrian Musolino, 17 May 2009 Adrian Musolino is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- 2018 World Cup, 2022 World Cup, FFA, football
Australia's Mark Viduka with Soccer Australia President Frank Lowry after Australia defeated Uruguay during the 2006 FIFA World Cup Qualifier match at Telstra Stadium, Sydney, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2005. Australia defated Uruguay in a penalty shoot out qualifying them for the World Cup in Germany. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Question marks over stadiums, aside from the politics of the bidding process, were for many the biggest impediment to Australia potentially hosting the 2018 or 2022 World Cup. Well it certainly is for Adelaide with the city given the blunt declaration from the FFA: build a new stadium or forget being part of the World Cup. The states officials aren’t budging.
The FFA declared that the three possible alternatives in Adelaide are all unsuitable.
AAMI Stadium is too far from the CBD and the grandstands too far from the action, Adelaide Oval doesn’t have the capacity, likewise Hindmarsh Stadium.
However, the State Government rejected FFA’s suggestion for a rectangular 40,000 plus stadium to be build on the outskirts of the CBD, reaffirming their already held position that they will seek to possibly redevelop AAMI or Adelaide Oval and will not commit to a new stadium, at least not until the World Cup bid was won.
Despite the frustrations of South Australian football fans it’s an understandable dilemma in a state with stadiums adequate for its sporting sides and in an economic climate that has resulted in governments running at record deficits.
But the impasse points at a greater problem, the lack of a united vision of the World Cup and the frustrations of doubt.
What struck me most in the response to the stadium dilemma was the ambivalence many felt towards a World Cup, the scepticism that it’s just not going to happen.
Is this the result of ambivalence toward the world game or is the FFA not doing a good enough job in drumming up support and enthusiasm for what would be the greatest sporting event ever held in Australia?
Regarding the stadiums and in this regard we are paying the price for our divergent sporting culture that for the past hundred years that has favoured our indigenous codes such as Aussie Rules and our stadiums are a mere reflection of that culture.
Only now is football getting on an even keel, a process that has only just happened in the past half a decade and therefore we don’t have the infrastructure in place. And now we want to stage the game’s, if not all of sport’s, biggest tournament.
Such dilemmas were always going to be apparent therefore.
The problem with Adelaide’s example is it damages the World Cup bid process.
Putting cynicism aside about why World Cups are handed out to certain nations when they are, on a purely infrastructure standpoint we still have a way to go and waiting on a successful bid will naturally impact the bid process itself and our chances.
While some may say the eastern seaboard can manage without an Adelaide, assuming FIFA is flexible with its city and stadium requirements, it won’t be a true Australian bid.
The World Cup is about more than economic concerns.
It should result in a lasting legacy for football in this country and that should include all major metropolitan areas.
While most focus on 2018, we should instead hope for 2022, not just as a more realistic target with 2018 surely earmarked for Europe, but also so we have that extra time to get the state governments on board and also the sceptics.
Thankfully FIFA allowed multiple bids for the two World Cups.
Let’s hope by then the public is a little more in touch with how big this event would be.
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Kurt said | May 17th 2009 @ 8:58am | Report comment
This seems like a pretty easy problem to solve at least on the surface. Our federal government has already ‘committed’ to hosting the world cup insofar as they are supporting the bid and therefore must understand that if we are lucky / unlucky enough to win (delete as appropriate) they will have to find a few billion to build essential infrastructure much as they did for the olympics. So couldn’t they get together with the SA state government and approve the construction of a nice shiny new rectangular stadium and simply make construction conditional upon us winning the bid? Perhaps that’s what they’re holding out for – the feds to underwrite construction. Even Germany built several new stadiums for the 2006 world cup, and I’m sure not all of those would have gone ahead had their bid been unsuccessful.
Perhaps I’m oversimplifying things but you’d have to think this would be a relatively easy issue to overcome.
andrew said | May 17th 2009 @ 9:10am | Report comment
I agree with Kurt. I don’t know why the SA government didn’t say that they will build a new stadium with construction starting in Dec 2010 (just after the hosts are announced) . Then again, since when have SA politicians ever been progressive or govern with a long term vision for the benefit of the state.
tifosi said | May 17th 2009 @ 9:27am | Report comment
Kurt, this is what Ben Buckley had to say :
“This does not mean the stadium has to be built or even has to be commenced in that timeframe,” he said. “It simply means that there needs to be a commitment to a FIFA compliant option on the basis that the bid is successful.”
The SA media reported it as an ultimatum which wasn’t the case.
The more this goes on the more i wonder if Australia can even afford to host the World Cup.
An article in last weeks Canberra Times mentioned, that an FFA audit of Canberra’s capability of hosting World Cup matches hinged on :
a) Upgrading Canberra Stadium to 40,000 Seats – Which would cost at anywhere between 50 and 100 Million dollars
b) building 3 new 5 star hotels.
Temporarily Upgrading the stadium wasnt a surprise but the need for 3 new 5 star hotels was. Canberra doesnt need 3 new 5 star hotels.
I dont see how Canberra, with its narrow commercial and tax base could possibly afford to do this. Also The last time Canberra Stadium was upgraded it cost the local Liberal party a lot of backlash when costs went over.
Add to that the temporary upgrades needed for Newcastle, Gold Coast, Melbourne Rectangular Stadium. Members Equity Stadium in Perth and hotels and training facilities then it will be in the Billions of dollars range.
FIFA have yet to make the number of stadiums required official, but i would say if adelaide dont get on board, Australia would struggle to get it, in particular when the USA bid committee has 58 stadia it is looking at.
True Tah said | May 17th 2009 @ 11:52am | Report comment
Tifosi agree about 5 star hotels – why the hell would Canberra need them? If we get the WC, surely supporters both domestic and foreign wouldnt mind about staying in backpacker hostels?
Millster said | May 17th 2009 @ 3:30pm | Report comment
This will come as perhaps surprising a post to some given my love for the game of Football and my dream that we do get WC2018 or 2022.
But I have some sympathy for Adelaide’s position. We are a very peculiar country with respect to geographic size versus population, and that combination carries the huge risk of ‘white elephant’ infrastructure if planning is not done carefully and conservatively.
I compare Australia’s problems to the situation of my other country – France – in facing the 1998 World Cup. In France, yes they needed the requisite number of venues. But the business case for these was quite different – not only did the 2 most popular codes (football and rugby) week-in week-out on that country justify in large part the infrastructure, so did the basic geography of the nation.
Lets take Toulouse or Marseilles as an example. They have decent football clubs and also a rugby presence. But more importantly they are only 3-4 hours from the entire rest of France by TGV (very fast train) and therefore will always be sure to get great nation-wide demand for the football and rugby internationals held there, as well as for any continental championships etc.
The issue with Australian cities are that they are simply not as accessible to each other – especially Adelaide and even more so Perth. As per my description above I would not think twice about doing an overnighter to Toulouse or Marseilles to see a big match if I was based in Paris or Lyon for example, and indeed I could probably do so at relatively low cost and with relatively little time penalty. But would I think twice and would it be a hassle (and significant cost) to do a mid-week trip to see a match in SA or WA from Sydney? Of course it would.
So that’s the problem at the level of the individual fan.
But the problem mirrors itself at the Federation level in terms of distributing games. Again in France, its not such a huge probelm. the FFF can give the requisite number of games to Paris and Lyon and then ‘divvy’ out the rest to the other major cities, again knowing that core fans have the ways and means to attend those games from wherever they are in the country.
But for Australia the questions mout very quickly… how many games are there to start with to ‘divvy out’? (far less than for France I suggest, though our entry to Asia has fixed this a bit). How many to give to the ‘core’ cities of Sydney and Melbourne which are our primary ‘windows to the world’. And then do you preference Brisbane and Canberra (and to a lesser extent Adelaide) due to them still being somewhat ok to get to from the big cities? How do you deal with Perth’s distance versus giving fans there a ‘fair go’? The picture rapidly ends up being one of compromise, and one in which realistically Adelaide and Perth may share at best 3 Socceroos/Wallabies internationals and probably not the best ones at that. And so we come the full circle to the question as to how a sustainable business case for a new specific stadium can be produced out of such circumstances…
And all I can do is end with that question mark as I don’t have a clear answer. Two of the central ingredients seem to me to be the design of GENUINELY reconfigurable multi-use stadia that are as good in ‘tighter’ rectangular mode as they are in oval mode, and also a real push for a long term strategic alliance and vision on facilities by all the rectangular codes (RL/RU/football) which puts aside competition in other areas. But even they are two general ‘gut feels’ and not a specific answer to what, to me, is a vexatious issue.
Yes we want and we need WC 2018 or 2022, for all sorts of reasons. And we want the whole nation to share in its excitement and benefits. But this desire and focus cannot justify potentially billions of dollars of infrastructure in our more remote, minor states for which there is no longer-term sense.
MVDave said | May 17th 2009 @ 3:53pm | Report comment
As Tifosi said bit of misreporting by the Adelaide media…shock horror! Certainly caused a significant amount of anti Sokkah sentiment in the newspaper letters/email section. As long is the commitment is there by 2010 when the final bids are in they will be part of it and yes the Feds will need to cough up some dough and yes the stadium will need to be GENUINELY multi purpose.
BTW By 2018 it is likely there will be 36 teams in the WC not 32, so more games per city etc.
Kurt
Germany didnt build any new stadiums but refurbished most of the existing ones. BTW Bundesliga have smashed all attendance records with ave so far of 43,000 per game ie give them good facilities and they will come and watch.
GaryGnu said | May 17th 2009 @ 4:05pm | Report comment
This is not a shot at the author, but is a question that has gnawed at me for a while and is sufficiently close to the topic of the thread for me to ask:
Is the correct word for the plural of stadium stadia or stadiums?
The SA Gov’t may be wary of reporoducing a white elephant on the scale of Stadium Australia. Useful and the correct size for its initial purpose but only rarely after that. Stadium Australia at least was partially privately funded but is still burning a hole in the pocket of ANZ Bank.
In this economic climate does is Government spending on major sporting infrastucture really supported by the economic benefits that one off major sporting events bring? It would appear that at this stage the Governments of WA (Memebers Equity stadium) and SA would say not.
Working Class Rugger said | May 17th 2009 @ 4:16pm | Report comment
With Member’s Equity the reason why they haven’t approved the $75 miilion re- develop is according to govt sources they evaluating the value of the Greefield site. The site was formerly a power station. With a seating capacity of 25,000 but with the ability to increase with as temporary seating increase of up to 20,000 supposedly.Either way a decision won’t be made until next year at the earliest. And the plural for multiple Stadium is Stadia
Cameron said | May 17th 2009 @ 5:44pm | Report comment
Australia hosting the FIFA world cup is an absolutely horrible idea and the South Australian government’s refusal to bend to the FFA’s demands is wholly understandable.
1) Soccer is a fringe sport in Australia
2) FIFA’s stipulations for venue sizes would create white elephant stadia across the country, a drain in years to come, Adelaide simply does not need another 40000 seat stadium. The only rectangular field sporting team there is the a-league one, the notion that a soccer team could draw 40 000 people to a game is laughable.
3) As you allude, Adrian, why should we make an attempt to foster a foreign sport at the expense of our native game, or sports that are already entrenched in our culture with strong followings and fans that already exist, not ones that need to be ‘cultivated’ through the creation of new facilities?
Soccer will be like the NBL in Australia — its coming off its novelty value after the ’06 world cup and they are already overextending themselves with all this talk of new franchises, basketball had its time in the early 90s and was a big growth sport and an international game; look at it now.
andrew said | May 17th 2009 @ 6:54pm | Report comment
Ah Cameron, all I can say is embrace the world and embrace the most played sport in Australia.