Australia not yet a player in Asia
Roar Pro
By Jesse Fink, 27 Nov 2009 Jesse Fink is a Roar Pro
During the week your blogger flew to Kuala Lumpur as a guest of the Asian Football Confederation, ostensibly to attend the AFC Annual Awards. But it was also an opportunity for me to see how Asian football actually works and I came home convinced Australia has Buckley’s chance of getting the 2018 or 2022 World Cup.
Les Murray, who was also with me in KL, assures me otherwise and believes Australia has a very good chance to get 2022, and he’s probably in a better position to judge, being involved with FIFA’s ethics commission and serving as chairman of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Sports Group (ABU).
For me, though, what struck me instantly about the gathering of dignitaries, special guests and heavy hitters at the AFC awards was the power that resides in the western and eastern blocs of the confederation: namely Saudi Arabia/the Gulf states and South Korea/Japan.
More than three-quarters of the awards went to Korea and Japan alone (FIFA vice-president Chung Mong-joon shouldn’t have bothered sitting down) and Mohamed bin Hammam, the AFC president, was conspicuously pally with Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad Khalifa Al-Thani, the son of the Emir of Qatar, and his enormous retinue of hangers-on, including Hassan Al-Thawadi, the chief executive of the Qatar 2022 bid committee.
Though Frank Lowy was appropriately seated three or four seats away from the president, Ben Buckley and the rest of the FFA delegation was squirreled away on a table against the far wall. Even Les, in his capacity as ABU chairman, had a better seat.
During an interminable traditional Malay dance performance, Lowy got up and started walking around, looking lost. I walked over to him and asked him if he needed help. “I’m trying to find my people,” he said, referring to Buckley, and I pointed him in the right direction.
Australia was nominated in five awards out of a possible 18, and only Matthew Cream, as AFC Assistant Referee of the Year, took home a statuette. As we all well know, no Australian players were nominated in any of the categories.
It was a fairly underwhelming evening from a parochial perspective, especially at a time when the FFA is trying to put its best foot forward in the race for 2018 or 2022.
Meanwhile Qatar 2022 was pulling out all stops and sparing no expense, setting up a booth in the lower lobby of the Shangri-La Hotel where the awards took place, giving away T-shirts, stickers and ornamental glass footballs and flying in their star spruiker, Sami Al-Jaber, the Saudi Arabian World Cup legend, for photo-ops and interviews.
Australia had no such presence.
So in, many respects, apart from Lowy’s perfunctory address to the International Football Arena conference in the same hotel on the Tuesday , I would consider it an opportunity lost.
The FFA chairman talks of Asia being “the centre of the future of world football”, and I would agree, but from what I’ve seen Australia is just a peripheral player in the region, far from where the action is. The sales pitch needs to change.
Talking incessantly about Asia is only drawing attention to the strengths of the other bidding nations – Qatar, Japan, Korea and Indonesia – which are better placed to maximise the benefits Lowy talks about.
What would be a better strategy is for Australia and Indonesia to forge closer ties, and there was gossip during the week in KL that Indonesia had urged a meeting of ASEAN football leaders to admit Australia to the South-East Asian zone of the AFC as a full member.
While an Australia-Indonesia joint bid is something far off, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.
As Lowy and Co know only too well, being a force in Asia is not about the size of your country but the quality of your relationships. The Australia–Indonesia one must now be a priority.
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BigAl said | November 27th 2009 @ 9:00am | Report comment
. . . !! but KB has been assuring us that the WC is in the bag ???
KB said | November 27th 2009 @ 9:52am | Report comment
don’t you read your own paper the AGE … ?
~~~~~~
KB
KB said | November 28th 2009 @ 7:28am | Report comment
Big Al,
just checking in to see if you had my comment deleted… Ha gee whizzz wonders will never cease, it’s still up…
Cheers for now
~~~~~~~
KB
BigAl said | November 28th 2009 @ 2:31pm | Report comment
KB . . . I’m afraid I’m going to do Pauline Hansen . . .’please explain!’
Why would I want your comment about the AGE deleted ? – was there something meant to be offensive about it ? If there was , it totally went over the my head !
In fact I have absolutely no idea what the point of your comment was ?????
I have never asked for anyones comment to be deleted ! – is it possible to do that ?t
KB said | November 28th 2009 @ 4:54pm | Report comment
Big Al,
sorry I didn’t answer you question … yes it’s possible to have a comment deleted if it is not to your liking … “report comment” … I have never resorted to it myself.. I find it to be too cowardly a feature to use, however, it has been used on my comments over the past couple of years … No idea why of course
~~~~~~
KB
sledgeross said | November 27th 2009 @ 9:12am | Report comment
Jesse, is it true that FIFA now has a mandate not to allow co-hosting of World Cups?
Freud of Football said | November 27th 2009 @ 7:48pm | Report comment
In principle this is true, after Japan/Korea they won’t want to do it again, a logistical nightmare.
danny said | November 27th 2009 @ 9:33pm | Report comment
in practice, they’ll do whatever suits them best. spain/portugal and belgium/netherlands bids are going ahead strongly.
The Bear said | November 27th 2009 @ 9:12am | Report comment
Joint bid with Indonesia? Why not have it over four regions. Say in China, Iran, Indonesia and Australia…?
Thanks for the perspective Jesse, probably a lot of egos held in check by the table placement. Lol, that Frank didn’t know where they “placed” our table. Probably did not want to ruffle his feathers…. too much.
Aljay said | November 27th 2009 @ 9:17am | Report comment
For all the talk about Mohammed bin Hamman’s spruiking, backroom FIFA deals from long ago and oil money, the fact is that Qatar is a country with a population the size of Sydney’s North Shore (approx 8-900,000) and about 400,000 temporary guest workers. 90% of these people live in Doha, making it about the size of Adelaide.
And they want to host a WC.
Alone.
I fall off my chair laughing when I consider this, but I clearly am missing something, as a large number of people are actually granting them credibility rather than ridicule. For instance, from memory the minimum number of stadiums for the world cup is 12, with no more than 2 allowed in each city, which would lead to a WC where half the stadiums have a greater capacity than the town/village they are based in. And I haven’t even started on the quality of their football team.
True Tah said | November 27th 2009 @ 9:48am | Report comment
Aljay
I think what Qatar would do is probably try to do a joint Gulf Bid, with UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.
Having said that, I still reckon they would struggle to meet the criteria.
Give them kudos for giving it a good shot, when people talk about Australia winning the hosting rights, I think it it based on what they want than anything else, what goodwill has Australia done generally for world futbol?? Maybe if they started assisting the Pacific Island states it might show something?
The Bear said | November 27th 2009 @ 10:00am | Report comment
Like including a New Zealand based club team in the HAL/ACL?
Tom said | November 27th 2009 @ 10:22am | Report comment
Australia still has quite a bit of involvement with Pacific football. We’d probably be better off shifting that involvement towards Asia.
The idea of a joint bid with Indonesia is ridiculous. The two countries might be next to one another but its a long, long way from Sydney to Jakarta.
But I think Jesse is right that a closer relationship with Indonesia would be a positive step for Australia to immerse itself in Asia more. Even if its just sending some professional footballers over for a couple of weeks to run a few clinics in some of the poorer areas, or some pre-season friendlies between A-league and Liga Indonesia teams.
KB said | November 27th 2009 @ 11:16am | Report comment
TT
FFA and Rudd gov have redirected some $4m dollars to the Pacific nations to help with the development of Football in that part of the world only a month or so a go…
Mushi said | November 27th 2009 @ 1:45pm | Report comment
By the same token why give it to a country with 20 million people over a land mass the size of the US?
If population size is going to be vital how come we haven’t been laughed off the world stage?
cruyff turn said | November 27th 2009 @ 9:17pm | Report comment
Too true Aljay, too true!
I don’t know why Fink feels so threatened by the other Asian bids – particularly Qatar. It’s the size of a postage stamp, yet how can it comply with FIFA’s guidelines on the stadiums? And what exactly have Qatar, or Indonesia, done ON THE FIELD to warrant hosting the game’s biggest event?
AndyRoo said | November 27th 2009 @ 10:03am | Report comment
Thought I would add these little tid bits of news from the AFC executive meeting
The draw for the AFC Asian Cup 2011 will be held in April, 2010 in Doha, Qatar. In addition, Qatars are to be seeded among the top group.
• Al Sharjah, who withdrew from the AFC Champions League 2009 after four rounds, will be asked to pay US$382,168 as compensation for the cost incurred by AFC in organising the four group matches.
danny said | November 27th 2009 @ 10:12am | Report comment
hopefully when the bidding for 2022 comes around, and the asian delegates are parochially voting for their own bids, and they’re getting knocked off one by one, the groundwork that Lowy et al have put in with the rest of the world will pay off and Australia will survive early rounds. then it’s a matter of asia accepting us enough to vote for Australia rather than voting for the USA and waiting for 2026.
we may not be favoured within our own confederation, but i think outside of asia and concacaf (+/- conmebol) we’d be getting close to the preferred candidate. hopefully our own confederation can likewise support us.
regarding becoming full members of the ASEAN federation, definitely a good move. would be a step closer to being accepted by the afc member nations.
Ben of Phnom Penh said | November 27th 2009 @ 12:48pm | Report comment
The ASEAN move would be very interesting, especially as we’d have to enter an A-League based side into the Suzuki Cup which would prove a good testing ground for up and coming players. Certainly I’d like to see A-League clubs engaged in more cup competitions in the immediate region.
Aljay said | November 27th 2009 @ 10:14am | Report comment
Truetah, yeah I thought that a “Gulf States” bid might be plausible, but they look set to go it alone and Sledgeross is correct that FIFA have disallowed joint bids. I think the Qatari bid is just bin Hamman trying to gain publicity for Qatar within the AFC and the Qatari government trying to gain support at home by tying itself to a popular sport (much like K Rudd here). Seems to me it is a ego/political bid more than a legit attempt to host the WC.
If FIFA awarded the WC to Qatar over England, Russia, Netherlands etc I think the major footballing nations in Europe would start WW3.
Freud of Football said | November 27th 2009 @ 7:50pm | Report comment
Don’t be so naive. Bin Hammam is the President of the AFC, he controls the way the nations will vote and he is going to put the Qatar bid ahead of Australia, Japan or Indonesia.
Further, Blatter owes him. Don’t be surprised if they make a “late dash”, then in 10 years we’ll discover it was already a done deal in 2008.
danny said | November 27th 2009 @ 9:39pm | Report comment
i think it’s naive of you to suggest that all of the afc representatives will bow meekly to bin hammam’s bidding. it wasn’t so long ago that the confederation was deeply divided. despite recent media reports that this is no longer the case, i wouldn’t be surprised if there were still deep resentments behind closed doors.
despite what bin hammam might want, i can’t see Chung Mong-joon, for instance (i’m pretty sure he’s on the voting panel), throwing away his vote needlessly. i think it will be quite a challenge to get the asian representatives united in the bidding, and it may take until late rounds for it to happen. i just hope australia has enough support from outside our own confederation to still be in the running at that point.
ABCDEFG said | November 27th 2009 @ 10:14am | Report comment
Australia-Indonesia 2018? I don’t know about that….. I still think we have enough to get a World Cup for ourselves
aubgraham said | November 27th 2009 @ 11:05am | Report comment
Not to mention the heat in Qatar – Asian Cup 2011 is begin held in January because of the heat. They couldn’t do that for the World Cup – must be June/July (much to our own consternation). As for joint bids, Spain-Portugal and Netherlands-Belgium suggests that joint bids (at least from the Euro zone) are not impossible.
Back to the heart of the article – if the idea is to get in bed with Indonesia for a joint bid then forget it. For the Russian bid the largest distance between two cities is approx 2000km (Sochi to Yekaterinburg), for the US bid the largest distance is 4000km (Boston to LA). Melbourne to Palambang is 5634.502 (second Indonesian Asian cup host city).
However, on a general note, I think working more closely with Indonesia is good politics. They are the fourth biggest in terms of population, they are the 5th largest economy, they are (as far as I know) passionate about football, even their domestic football. More importantly, if this article is correct, they actual want to work with us. I assume that entry as a full member of ASEAN would mean Australia would enter the ASEAN cup that is held every two years around December. A chance, perhaps, for the A-League Socceroos to get more of a taste of Asia.
Brian said | November 27th 2009 @ 11:10am | Report comment
The Qatari bid is a joke. In addition to Aijay’s points their football team is crap, they have serious issues with women’s rights and what they call “guest workers” are basically modern day slaves bought in from the rest of Asia to do the work Qataris don’t want to without getting any of the normal rights. Oh and of course the European supporters couldn’t drink as they pleased. Games will also be played at 40 degree + tempreatures, Israel would not be allowed to enter qualification and the security requirements for the US would be huge.
The most logical progression is still that England wil get 2018 and the US 2022, but if any of those bids slip up Australia probably next in line. If the English fail 2018 would still probably go to Spain/Portugal or Russia but if the US don’t get 2022 I can only see it going to Australia
Freud of Football said | November 27th 2009 @ 7:51pm | Report comment
China has a terrible human rights record, yet they got the olympics.Qatar has the power and money to throw at a WC bid that Australia and Indonesia could never dream of and Japan wouldn’t bother competing as it wouldn’t be financially viable.