Buckley rules out caretaker option for Socceroos

Football Federation Australia boss Ben Buckley has squashed any suggestion of a caretaker Socceroos coach for next January’s Asia Cup finals, should incumbent Pim Verbeek not continue beyond the World Cup later this year.

Dutchman Verbeek has deflected all media questions about his future, though there have been reports he would not look to carry on after the World Cup.

With the qualification series for the 2014 World Cup starting next June, Buckley was keen to have a permanent coach installed prior to the Asia Cup.

The qualification process is effectively starting seven months sooner than last time.

“If Pim is not the coach beyond the World Cup, our first priority is to get someone in place who would take us to the Asia Cup and take us to the (2014) World Cup,” Buckley said.

“We don’t to get into caretaker situations. It is a global market, you’ve got to look at who is available, when they are available.”

While the FFA has appointed a number of Dutchman to key technical and coaching positions, Buckley stressed they were not locked into recruiting from that country alone.

“We will look at all available coaches from all nations and get the best person for the job,” Buckley said.

Asked what would constitute a successful World Cup finals performance by the Socceroos, Buckley said: “We certainly want to achieve at least what we achieved last time and go beyond that,” referring to Australia’s last 16 effort at the 2006 World Cup.

“I think if we don’t aspire to that, I think people should be critical of us.”

Buckley confirmed Australia would play one more warm up match in South Africa apart from the June 5 friendly against the United States which has already been announced.

The FFA chief said his organisation was about 90 per cent of the way to finalising details of the stadia they plan to submit in their World Cup bid on May 14.

He said his organisation was pushing ahead with plans to include Geelong‘s Skilled Stadium among the venues, with Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium now effectively ruled out.

“We understand the AFL‘s position on Etihad and we understand the Victorian government’s proposal around Geelong,” Buckley said.

He said Etihad Stadium was a private asset and it wasn’t possible within the remaining time period for it to be included in the World Cup bid.

Buckley was encouraged by the feedback he got from leading administrators of the other three major football codes at a meeting earlier this week.

“The meeting was pretty positive, it was a good opportunity to get all of those specific issues tabled and for the government task force and for us to agree on a framework to solve those issues,” Buckley said.

He believed the cost of upgrading the new rectangular stadium in Melbourne to World Cup standards would be prohibitive.

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