$2.8 billion of infrastructure promised in World Cup bid

You make a good point Michael C. I am not the Victory faithful but I knew about it...so you would assume the "20k members" or whatever the figure is would have known...

Hi Big Al "Mark Young – to put it bluntly, you appear to be a tad naive . . ." And a Good Afternoon to you too sir! Please, if I you are going to call me Naive, then at least have the decency to call me completely naive, none of this tad rubbish!! But seriously, Is it really naive to be disappointed that a Football World Cup won't leave a football leagacy. I can only presume that you are a particularly pragmatic character! I feel sorry for Perth that the sort of solution they are proposing at Canberra http://www.canberrastadium.com.au/about/options_for_future_development.php won't be implemented. Everyone wins in that solution, nice upgraded or new grounds for every code. But hey! The staidums being used in Souith Africa are fairly different from the ones in their bid book so it is anyone's guess what would ultimately happen IF we get the cup. Have a good one Mate!

You could bring the ends in so that you could get a decent view for decent sports played there

?? They have daylight saving ??!!! And, they held referendum on Sunday trading and it was soundly defeated ! - their home town, their decision ! - that's democracy for ya !

Perth......backwards??, it's only a relative measure......if you go there by road, you need to go via Adelaide and suddenly Perth doesn't seem quite so backward at all!!!! ;-)

Yes of course, but that is just an excuse and not relevant to a visitor or resident who wonders why his/her city is stuck in the 1980s despite all its financial good fortune. Or put another way, I'm sure the complex relationships also existed in cities that have transformed themselves... why is it intractably hard in Perth? (of course other backwards issues like daylight savings and sunday trading don't help in terms of the overall image either)

Millster surely you know that the relationship between all the various stakeholders is a complicated one, not too dissimilar with what's happening in Adelaide.

Given the current trend of things, I would say that every stadium to stay relevant would require major re-development after 30 years and/or replacement after 50 !

I would've considered going if I'd known about it.

I don't begrudge Perth getting a good stadium that will be used 60% of the time in oval mode out of this. Subi is a horrible old place and should have been replaced years back, and Eagles/Dockers fans deserve better (see, I can say something nice about ALF). My only hope is that it can be reconfigured to rectangular quickly and without trashing the turf, so that football and rugby fixtures can take full advantage of the new facility as well. More generally whenever I go to Perth I can't believe how slack thay have been on this sort of infrastructure. For a town so incredibly rich on mining money, they have really lagged in terms of doing the big projects that they have been talking about for decades. Decent stadia, the delays in upgrading the precinct around the old entertainment centre up towards northbridge, the lack of bold foreshore development... they really need to get going in terms of modernising their city. It should be an amazing place by now, but whenever I go there it really is looking old and tired despite all the money in that city.

Circle, Oval and a too small ground. AAMI park needs 5000-10000 more seats. I love AAMI park more than anything and is perfect size for the Melbourne Victory and a wonderful view and atmosphere, that we'll never get to play Sydney FC, Adelaide, ACL and finals there is tragic! like the rest of Australia, Melbourne needs a World Cup legacy too... not just NSW

Got it BigAl, however I tend to think if you build it, it will grow.

yes and no - - there were some big promo ads in the small paper......and they don't even sponsor the Victory like the broadsheet does. And SEN gave it a bit of promotion, main thing is - - the MVFC faithfull surely had no excuse to NOT know about it.........and you'd've thought there'd be a throng wanting to catch their first glimpse of 'soccer' and their MVFC at the venue even if just a 'friendly'.........after all, Aust vs NZ in a couple of weeks is 'just a friendly' too!!!

Baz35 - you said The australian tax payer and the AFL / League have made this bid possible. Soccer could not have put in a viable bid without any of them exactly right - - which again, beggars belief as to why the Feds ever thought that in Australia of all places that the FFA was at all capable of pulling this all together on their own - - - heck, looking back, when Melb big for the 1996 Olympics at a cost of $21 million, the Feds only put up half of it and the private sector the rest : Corporate Australia pumped more than $10 million into the $21 million bid, mainly through the Melbourne 100 Club, which had 101 members who each contributed $100,000. So, it still seems really odd that the Fed Govt signed over $45 mill (at least) to the FFA to pull together something that they - stand alone - were so far from equipped to do; and that relied so fundamentally upon the (large scale) buy in plus sacrifice of COMPETITING codes. I just wonder how 'bitter' it might have got had the Govt driven it from the outset??

just wonder if the WAFC get the management rights??

Long before your time Punter there was this character on this forum who kept posting entries containing the prophetical/pompous sounding quotation re the A-League . . . . " build it and they will come ! " . What I'm getting at here Punter, is what I was getting at back then ... i.e. 'building' doesn't mean they'll come !! hope all this helps !

To be fair, the event received next to no publicity. Its was a just a friendly/practice match....the Victory will average 20k plus in their new ground I think.

It was a very low number because it was only a testimonial match. Even worse it was a testimonial for Muscat! He probably still hacked people down.

Melbourne already has world class MCG, Etihad and AAMI Park Doesn't need a legacy

Lost me there BigAl, not sure what point you are making there.