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Australian soccer supremo Frank Lowy refuses to be cowered by the might of Europe and will go full steam ahead in his “Herculean” fight to host the 2018 World Cup.
The Czech-born billionaire has confirmed Australia’s prime objective is the 2018 event, for which Europe is the firm favourite, with 2022 a possible second prize.
Football’s world body FIFA will decide simultaneously in December 2010 who hosts both championships, but no continent can get two in a row.
“We are concentrating on 2018,” the Football Federation Australia (FFA) chairman confirmed when asked if his focus was shifting to 2022.
“Our objective at the moment is absolute and total.
“We have a very good chance and we are going to go for it.”
Australia is one of nine countries bidding for 2018, and one of 11 nations in the scramble for 2022.
“We are single-minded but not stupid,” Mr Lowy told the National Press Club in Canberra.
“In case we slip, we have another chance at 2022.”
Europe has hosted half of the four-yearly World Cups held since 1930, but will miss out on three in a row if it fails to secure the 2018 event.
It has strong bids from England, whose only World Cup was in 1966, as well as Russia and joint campaigns from Belgium/Holland and Portugal/Spain.
But Mr Lowy said Europe was a mature market, and awarding the showcase to Europe again would be like “putting a cherry on top of a gigantic chocolate cake”.
He challenged FIFA to ditch the status quo and go for growth by taking an historic opportunity to “turbo-charge” the game in Asia.
He also dismissed the claims of another major contender, the US, by saying the game had “not gone as far as expected” in North America since the US hosted the 1994 World Cup.
And he confided he was glad China had not thrown its hat in the ring after staging the successful 2008 Olympics.
“If I can say it quietly, thank God they haven’t bid because our job would be a lot more difficult if they did.”
FFA chief executive Ben Buckley said Australia was on track to complete its bid by May next year.
Hundreds of millions of dollars would have to be spent on new stadia and venue upgrades to meet FIFA’s requirements for at least two 80,000-seaters plus ten 10 stadia with capacity for 45,000.
But Mr Lowy said this was not a reckless gamble because “the big investments need only flow once we are assured of hosting one of the World Cups”.
“The prize is too big not to go for it,” he said.
“And we have a better than even chance.
“Being timid in world football gets you nowhere and standing on the sidelines is not in my DNA.”
He said Asia had only hosted one World Cup, Japan/South Korea in 2002, and Australia was the only continent not to have hosted it.
The biggest television audience for the World Cup, by far, was in Asia, not Europe or America, he said.
As to whether Sydney or Melbourne would host the World Cup final in the event of a successful Australian bid, Mr Lowy replied diplomatically: “Your guess is as good as mine.”
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