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Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and FFA Chairman Frank Lowy center left. AP Photo/Rob Griffith
As excitement builds for the start of South Africa 2010, there is, sadly, no correlation of excitement or even traction in Australia for our very own World Cup bid, despite the decision on its success or failure looming in December.
With the deadline for final bid documents less than a fortnight away, and with the FFA reportedly still locked in negotiations until very recently to secure the MCG (surely a deal breaker considering Etihad Stadium is off limits for the World Cup) with question marks over other stadiums, the perception of the bid is that it’s a faltering mistake.
This perception, however, has only been fostered by the lack of any sort of promotion and excitement generated within the country for the bid.
If a FIFA delegate arrived in Sydney or Melbourne today, what evidence would they find that Australia was even bidding to host the biggest sporting event in the world?
There’d be none, and the only news they’d read on the bid is the ongoing stadium saga caused by the protracted discussions to appease other codes – something that is unique to Australia’s bid and has, sadly, been the major talking point of the bid thus far.
Like the ambivalence around the A-League, the lack of clout at the FFA, with little marketing and media presence is having a debilitating impact on the World Cup bid, which is barely visible in the Australian community.
When was the last time you saw the World Cup bid promo video on your screens?
(On bid videos, how embarrassing that the World Cup bid promo video featuring Nicole Kidman that was shown to delegates around the world proclaims that Australia hosts the Indy 500!)
The last significantly visible World Cup bid promo I can think of off the top of my head was the A-League round when all teams had the ‘Come Play!’ insignia on their shirts.
There are no billboards or other promotions visible that are worthy of mention that are generating significant support for the bid.
As Craig Foster says, the game is in isolation – and the World Cup bid is suffering from this isolation.
In contrast to our rivals our bid is suffering in silence.
Qatar, one of our likely rivals for 2022 and too often overlooked when discussing genuine contenders, has been aggressively promoting its bid at home and abroad.
Not only did their bid feature prominently in the recent Qatar MotoGP round – an event watched by millions across the world, specifically in Europe – but they even went as far as advertising at the Bernabeu stadium during “Il Classico”.
The United States of America has been aggressively pushing its own World Cup bid within the country as part of a greater push to widen the popularity of its national team at a time when the game is substantially growing.
As executive director of the U.S. bid David Downs told my colleague Davidde Corran, “We think it is very important to be promoting the bid within the United States.
“On the one hand this is an election campaign where only 24 votes matter, and only one of those votes belongs to someone who is in the US, but it is very important for us, as in every political campaign, to have the support of the grassroots community.”
As Downs says, the World Cup bid’s success or failure won’t be judged on an Australian Idol-type popularity contest amongst the respective populations of the bidding nations – a signal of interest or want, if you will – but it needs grassroots support.
The lack of interest, unity and desire to want to host the event in Australia is concerning, and won’t go unnoticed – particularly when the other codes are dictating the World Cup bid’s agenda in the press and at the negotiation table over stadiums.
The excitement toward the bid won’t generate itself, particularly in a football ambivalent society like Australia’s.
To that end, our bid is failing.
Our bid has Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and Ian Thorpe (appropriate considering Australia’s nauseating obsession with all things celebrity), but so what?
Is ‘our Nicole’ really going to sacrifice her next $30 million movie to mingle with FIFA officials in the corporate boxes of stadiums around the world?
You can’t help but think England’s David Beckham is a far better and more relevant spokesperson for their bid than our strangers to football.
One has to wonder (be concerned) why the likes of Harry Kewell, Tim Cahill and Mark Schwarzer, let alone former Socceroos such as Mark Viduka, aren’t more involved in the bidding process.
Our bid’s strength (only real strength) may be in social media circles (Australia’s Facebook bid page had 141,028 fans at last count compared to the USA’s 25,970), but this medium’s limitation is that it doesn’t set agendas (as well as being facile, at times).
The deafening silence from the FFA as the other codes have delayed on stadium negotiations to the brink of the deadline date for such negotiations to have been completed is one of immense frustration for football followers, and all this has been played out in the press with scant countering points on the sheer scope, size and enormity of what a World Cup would bring to Australia.
In this isolation and silence, other codes have been able to cast doubt on the World Cup bid and exploit the lack of strong leadership at the FFA to use their stronger popularity base in Australia to plant fears and exaggerations.
Andrew Demetriou must chuckle at how easily he rattled the World Cup bid’s cage with his posturing.
As the aforementioned Foster says: “It is high time Australians demanded more from those at the bargaining table. We are better, and bigger, than this. So get the deal done and stop the rot, for the love of God. If love of country is not enough.”
And it is high time the bid generated some excitement, noise and traction at home, so the doubters and skeptics can’t overshadow what hosting a World Cup means to this country.
If there is no want or desire for an Australian World Cup, then we should ask ourselves why we are bothering to bid for it for the millions it’s costing could have been better spent in stabilising the A-League’s foundations, supporting the grassroots of the game or, and this is a crucial and often overlooked point, finding ways to unite ‘old soccer’ with ‘new football’ and better tie the state leagues and former NSL clubs to the A-League and the National Youth League.
If the World Cup won’t have a united Australia behind it then we don’t have the right to host and sully the tournament.
If we want a World Cup in Australia we need to show it.
But that desire can only engulf the country if the flame is first sparked by the spruikers themselves – and those spruikers are conspicuous by their silence