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Whatever they think – really think – of Australian football’s bid to host the World Cup, the AFL and NRL have made one point bluntly clear this week. If football wants their support, or at least their compliance, then football will have to work damned hard for it.
Within a day of Football Federation Australia (FFA) heavyweights returning from a successful bid presentation in South Africa, the AFL had fired the first shot of a public campaign that has dominated this week’s sports headlines.
“Footbrawl,” was splashed across the front page of Monday’s Herald Sun.
Apparently, the MCG could be lost to the AFL for an entire season if it was a World Cup venue.
That would mean the loss of an entire AFL and clubs would fold as a result.
It only later emerged that the long-term unavailability of the MCG was an initial FFA idea, no longer being considered.
No matter. The tone of the week was set.
As the AFL’s well-planned campaign unfolded, the media was soon asking the NRL for their opinion and just as predictably, league’s response was the same.
“We are happy to try and work together but the price of that cooperation cannot be such that it puts the future of our clubs at risk,” league chief executive David Gallop said after a Friday meeting with the FFA.
“We have to be able to operate effectively for our own clubs’ sake.
” … There is only so much disruption our clubs can endure and still remain viable in the years that follow.”
The AFL had already made their feelings clear to the FFA in a letter sent to chief executive Ben Buckley on November 24.
In the correspondence, AFL boss Andrew Demetriou wrote of their “extreme disappointment with the lack of accurate and consistent information” regarding the Cup bid.
It is understood that were it not for the fact that Buckley is a good friend and former North Melbourne teammate of Demetriou’s and also an ex-AFL executive, this week’s media campaign would have been much more intense.
Not surprisingly, the AFL have suffered some public backlash this week for their hard-line stance.
But they have shown several times on major issues that they are quite prepared to wear some PR flak if they are convinced they are right.
They defied the then-Liberal Federal Government on their illicit drugs policy two years ago and they were willing to force the AC/DC concerts out of Etihad Stadium in their dispute this year with that venue.
Demetriou might sound like a hot-head in public, but he is no dummy.
He knows better than anyone that the FFA need the major Australian football codes, just as the AFL and NRL cannot afford to be publicly off-side with a World Cup in this country.
Another wily old operator, Etihad Stadium boss Ian Collins, wrily observed this week that “if there’s a will, there will always be a way so that people can work through things”.
There are also big potential benefits for all Australian football codes if a the World Cup goes ahead here in 2018 or 2022.
Major stadium work – such as the proposed $150 million retractable roof on ANZ Stadium in Sydney – will have to proceed for the tournament to work.
And there are obvious drawbacks, primarily the massive free kick football will get in the ongoing battle for the hearts and minds of Australia’s next generation of footy stars.
Nine or 13 years might seem a long time, but football’s world governing body FIFA will decide next year on who hosts the two tournaments.
In the view of the AFL and NRL, paramaters must be set now.
The international media have taken up this story and no doubt FIFA will be looking at this week’s events with interest.
But it is no decisive blow to Australia’s World Cup hopes.
Anyone who has bought a house, or any union official, will tell you it is simply all about negotiation.
You make your hard-nosed ambit claim, then try to find some sort of middle ground.
“I think every country has issues that it has to deal with, logistical, operational, scheduling issues, stadium issues,” Buckley said after Friday’s NRL meeting.
“This is just one of those operational issues that each country has to work through during the course of the bid so I don’t believe over time it will have a negative impact at all on our bid.
“I think there’s a genuine spirit of cooperation and goodwill.
“We at no time want to disadvantage any other competition and we’ve always said that that we’d be open and transparent and we reinforced that commitment today.”
Cooperation? Goodwill? Genuine?
Let’s reserve judgment for a few months.
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