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.
danny
Guest
further to pip, it's no longer a rotation per se, rather a lock out for each confederation for two cups after they host. technically, africa were able to bid for 2022 but chose not to. egypt were rumoured to be bidding for a while. there's no mandate that 2018-2026 will be shared between europe, asia and north america. it's just logic that dictates this, as these regions share the wealth.
danny
Guest
i'm yet to see it stated anywhere that only one city can have two stadiums, despite it constantly being brought out as gospel. by contrast, spain 82 had both barcelona and madrid with two stadiums. on the topic of london, they are proposing 4 london-based stadiums; wembley, emirates, olympic, and new white hart lane. also putting forward anfield, stanley park and kirkby from liverpool. unlikely they'd use more than 2 and 1 from london and liverpool respectively, just shows there's no problem with putting forward multiple options to let fifa choose from.
matty1974
Guest
Pip, sounds like you've firmly made up your mind that Oz will not host. But I'll leave you with two questions. 1. Which will make FIFA more money in TV rights and sponsorship (USA having bigger stadiums does not come into it, the host nation will keep most of the ticket sales). A WC screened in USA prime time or one screened in Asian prime time? 2. Which of the bidding (not China, India etc, they are not bidding) Asian nations presents a more compelling case than Australia? cheers.
Midfielder
Guest
Same thing slightly different info http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/2009InsideFFA/default.aspx?s=insideffa_newsfeatures_newsitem_new&id=31032
tifosi
Guest
http://au.sports.yahoo.com/news/article/-/6527178/rudd-in-fifa-talks-about-world-cup-bid/ Rudd still spruiking Australia's bid. If australia misses out it wont be from lack of trying. I noticed Gordon Brown was also spruiking to Warner
KB
Guest
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 :lol: ~~~~~~ KB
Ben of Phnom Penh
Guest
This is where a Qatari bid will struggle as there is an important "legacy to football" element that needs to be a part of each bid.
Pippinu
Roar Guru
tifosi I don't think Australia will have any problems with these sorts of guarantees - our public administration (which is what is covering off all of these) are world class - you should know that coming from Canberra!!
Pippinu
Roar Guru
Brian the "rotation policy", as it was implemented prior to Asia and Africa getting the WC, is gone.
Brian
Guest
There still is a rotation policy, just not as stringent as before but no continent can host consecutively or every 2nd turn. In other words with Africa having 2010 & S.America 2014, than 2018, 2022 & 2026 will be split one Asia, one Europe, one N.America. The question is whether Australia can get the Asian one. The answer should be yes unless China bids for 2026
tifosi
Guest
Its not all about stadiums though. host countries must make 17 guarantees to FIFA. These are listed here: http://www.sa2010.gov.za/en/guarantees I would really love to go thru the bid book to see what else is required. I believe its 1200 pages long though !!
Pippinu
Roar Guru
Jimbo have you seen their bid book first hand? England will have zero trouble coming up with the requisite stadiums - they could host the damn thing tomorrow.
jimbo
Guest
Pip, the rules keep changing and I don't think that will be the case for Australia. The England bid has nominated 3 stadia in London.
AndyRoo
Guest
I think we are getting too worried about the rules. Parramatta is legaly it's own city, we can massage some borders to get it in. Same with the ovals. They can put signage or paint the spare grass with sponsers logos, then it's $$$ vs Spectator comfort. The power of positive thinking, which thankfully might be enough because most of the non euro bids look pretty shaky and even the Us bid team has struggled funding wise. after missing out on the olympics Obama supports the bid for the world cup but he hasn't let them use his credit card.
Pippinu
Roar Guru
matty the major flaw with everything you have written is that both 2002 and 2010 were allocated during the now defunct "rotation policy" - as soon as Blatter got his WC in Africa, he ditched the policy. So it's a waste of time referring to 2002 and 2010 - they both represent ancient history.
Pippinu
Roar Guru
Jimbo I believe only one city can have two stadiums. If that's true, a few of your stadiums end up getting knocked on the head. There need to be 8 host cities - I can only count five cities in the examples you gave.
BigAl
Guest
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
jimbo
Guest
Australia already has 2 world class stadia that hold over 80K MCG – 97K, Sydney Olympic Stadium –84K. Plus we have have another 8 stadia that hold over 40K - AAMI Stadium - 52K Queensland Athletic Stadium - 49K Gabba Brisbane - 42K Suncorp Brisbane – 53K Etihad Stadium - 57K Sydney Cricket Ground - 44K Sydney Football Stadium - 46K Subiaco Oval – 42K No need to spend billions if you don’t want to. Although governments use the World Cup as an excuse to create jobs and improve infrastructure and are willing to outlay the money for the benefits, as we did for the 2000 Olympics which gave us the Sydney Olympic complex and untold sporting and recreation facilities and a whole new suburb of Sydney. If we did win a WC bid I wonder where the opening ceremony, opening game, final and closing ceremony would be played. It would be fought out between Sydney and Melbourne.
matty1974
Guest
Realfootball, Japan was awarded the WC as co host in 1996. The J league average attendance in 1996 was 13,000. When the USA was awarded the 1994 WC, they did not even have a pro comp in existence. Last weeked, the South African Premier league's 8 fixtures averaged just over 11,000 (6 of the 8 games had crowds of 8,000 or less). Clearly having an EPL standard comp is not a requirement of a succcessful WC bid. In fact your argument is just another reason to award OZ the Cup, it will help build interest in and grow the A league.
Midfielder
Guest
Sorry posted in the wrong thread