Man the ramparts, FFA, we're being raided

Looks like someone should call ghotbi and ask for his help

Im suprised Australia doesnt have the stadiums to host a world cup. Im bloody sure South Africa dont either. But they got a World Cup. The security is a farce, public transport non existant, not that it non existant but that you will get robbed if you take it and stadium will struggle to be finished and to the quality required. Lets also remember that the raid on Australian talent is why football is a success, if the whole socceroo squad played in australia they would be nothing. The success of the socceroos is based on sucess of talent in europe to have 20 odd players in Asia playing at a better standard will only help football here in the long run. It would great if they some home to play a year or 2 after Asia. If we acnt afford them they have to look aboard.

Dean heffernan suspension from domestic games doesn't exclude you from international matches with the exception of serious infringement such as striking an official (ergo explaining Danny vukovic suspension from the olympics), bringing game to disrepute, racism charges, match fixing etc.

Parrot Hunter Bit pessimistic there Of course Australia does not meat the stadia requirement. However IF (a big if) we win the bid then we build the stadia. Euro - Poland and Ukraine, South Africa - world cup Japan - south korea world cup THey all involve building stadiums after winning the bid rather having the stadium required from the get go. As long as we submits the plan of building the stadium in our bid. Then not having the required stadiums so far is not necessary will exclude us from hosting the world cup

Australia DOES NOT and WILL not have enough stadia that meets WC criteria. The bid is nothing more than mutual grandstanding by Lowy and Rudd. Pull out now boys before you are severely embarrassed. As for players to Asia ... we need to have a cap tailored to each club's ability to spend, bank guaranteed, and approved by FFA auditors. Why should successful wealthy clubs be punished and why should joke club owners like Con, Tony and others, be given a "leg up" to create an even playing field ? Too many good players aren't playing in the A-League and are stuck in state league, as bargain basement players need to be recruited within the remaining cap, after undeserving players get 150K and they're not as good as Shannon Cole (and he aint that good). So state leaguer is not going to take a pay cut to play A-League. Three clubs are currently cheating the salary cap system openly anyway. One Socceroo's wife has a job at her husband's club ... guess how many hours she works ? Change the cap system, add an "Asian import rule" ... and we'll have a better league. BTW, Danny Vukovic wants to know how Heff can be a Socceroo while he's suspended ??? The Indonesians are aware, and will protest if he takes the field ... guaranteed.

Agree James Young players who play in Korea, China will learn a lot. There's no reason why they can't develop their skills there in Asia and diversify their game. It's not a crap league. Also according to AFC Korea and Chinese league technical standards is higher then A-league. We rather have them move to europe but asia is not a bad option. Although about national coach with knowledge of Asia. It shouldn't be a prerequisite but it should always be part of the selection criteria even if players have experience football in Asia. Having a Guus Hiddink who is a world class manager with Asian experience compared to another world class manager without asian experience (eg. Capello or Scolari) we would choose a hiddink.

Personally at this point in time i dont see Australian players heading to other Asian Nations as a completley bad thing, it is a good way for us to begin to adapt to the Asian style of football (when players return home to coach or play), that said also hopefully it is a wake up call for the FFA and A-league clubs to secure some Asian talent, which will also help us adapt to the asian style. With this new found knowledge of Asia we eventually may not need a National Coach with knowledge of Asia (ala Pim) as we would already have it.

A World Cup in Qatar? Well I know money can buy almost anything, but: * Does little old Qatar have enough grounds? I imagine they would need 8. Let's say they build that many. But then they would all be pretty much in the same spot, which would not be popular and would be logistically difficult - millions of supporters staying in the one spot? So let's spread the matches across other emirates. But then all the host emirates would want automatic qualification, which is unrealistic. * It's one thing to play the odd match (WC qualifier, pre-season exhibition, etc.) in an oven, but to play the whole tournament in such conditions? It's hard to see the Europeans agreeing to that. * The European TV networks would probably want the matches to be played in prime time, which would mean midnight kick-offs (9 pm in continental Europe). Rumble in the Jungle, anyone? (Yes, yes, I know that was 4 am, but my point stands.)

Phutbol safety is something I would not worry about too much in Qatar - its an absolute monarchy and they would ensure everything would be safe. BTW Iran itself would be fairly safe. What Im questioning (and like yourself am largely ignorant of Qatari affairs) is do they have the stadiums and infrastructure - we are talking about a country with a population of about 1.5K - could they cope with millions of fans coming in around the world? Maybe it would be a joint gulf states bid, with UAE/Bahrain/Kuwait? I would have thought their human rights record would count against them as well. Also Jesse, I know you do not like rugby and probably are unaware of this, but you might be interested to know that Dubai is hosting the Rugby Sevens World Cup this year - therefore winning the FIFA WC in 2018/2022 would not be the first time a Middle Eastern/Muslim country has hosted a World Cup (unless by World Cup, you are only referring to the FIFA World Cup).

On the 2018/2022 issue; I know that Qatar isn't exactly Iraq/Iran, and I dont profess any intimate knowledge of that country, but i would have thought security of the whole mid east area must be a factor against their bid? 31 foreign teams (probably not a huge risk due to the security they would have), and millions of supporters from all over the world would have to be a terrorists dream come true.

I agree with dasilva. The fact that JG is on a marquee contract and he still wants to leave suggests that it isn't the salary cap that is stopping us from keeping our top players. Also the Korean clubs, who are surely richer than their A-League counterparts, don't seem to be able to stop their top players from heading to Japan. I think if we raise the cap too much all it will do is open the door for Sydney FC and Gold Coast to dominate the league. Do we really want to have a situation where the same two clubs play off for the toilet seat every season while the other eight teams have to be content with making up the numbers? And it still won't stop our players from going overseas. Find a billionaire sugar daddy for every club and then we'll talk about scrapping the cap. Again dasilva is correct in saying that we are just a feeder league and that we have to accept our place. The goal for us should be to keep investing in our youth so that there will always be local players who can step up and fill the gaps. Raiding the SE Asian leagues is a good idea; however it is the next generation of Australian talent who will determine whether the A-League can keep the pace with the rest of Asia. This is why the youth league is so important and I'm glad we have one.

Dasilva, I have no problem to see Griffiths bros, Colosimo and Dodd to play in Asian clubs as these players hardly make into the Socceroos and neither representing the future Socceroos. However it is an unease to lose the younger generation like Milligan, NTS to the Chinese and Korean leagues. They are the future and we can't afford to watch them strolling in the Asian wonderland when they are 23+ years old. J-league may be ok for them but Eredivisie would be much better, like what Nikita is heading for. A 6 months loan to Middle East + A-League is still a better choice than the Chinese and Korean leagues.

Joel Griffiths is a marquee player. The fact that even though he is exempt from the salary cap but NEwscastle still don't have the resources to keep him shows Australian club in general just don't have the finance to keep the best Australian players to move to China let alone Europe. Sure the salary cap should rise like it does every year. However we shouldn't get into knee jerk reaction about the fears of losing Australian players to Asian clubs. We don't really have the same concerns when they go to europe so we shouldn't feel bad that they move to asia Is the problem is that we are losing players overseas or we are losing players to Asian clubs? Don't think I'm accusing Australia being racist just a bit of feeling amongst us that we overestimate our place in the pecking order of world football. We just have to know our place and according to AFC ranking we are like 5th or 6th best league in Asia and accept that we will be a feeder league to the Asian clubs and the European clubs in our current state. What happen now is to find a country below Australia in the AFC league rankings and do the same thing and poach those talents.