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The thing about a game of football – 22 players on the pitch, two managers, a referee and his or her two assistants – is that, for the trained eye, you can get a decent enough read on it. The thing about Friday’s morning’s game, being played out in Zurich by 22 or more players, is that it’s just about impossible to get a read, even to those right in the mix.
Listening to the Frank Lowy, as we have done across numerous interviews over the past few weeks, the thing that resonates is his own lack of absolute faith in the system that surrounds him.
He says that the FIFA Executive Committee members tell him they like Australia, that they are friends of Australia, that they will vote for Australia, but then suggests they are likely to be saying the same things elsewhere.
It speaks to the machinations with the corridors of FIFA.
Who knows?
If one had to take a read on Lowy’s body-language over the past few weeks, you would say we’ve run a great, long race, but that we’ve faded a slight bit in the home straight.
Not that there’s any doubt that Lowy and his bid team have stayed the distance.
It’s just that others appear to be coming home strong, particular Qatar, who are reported to be making all the noise.
Money just might have the last say. Should we really be surprised if that’s the case?
Lowy knows a thing or three about that subject, but it is his love of football and Australia, and unifying the two, that has been driving him throughout this project.
He looks a tired man and those closest to him would likely admit he has aged more in the past couple of years than in the five or six before that. Looking at him from afar, the bid looks to have taken a toll.
Perhaps his biggest blow came at home, around the middle of the year, when the AFL and its leader, Andrew Demetriou, played hard-ball over grounds, schedules and whatever else he could think of.
For a country that needed to show FIFA that the whole nation was behind the bid, it wasn’t the greatest look.
Demetriou did anything but Come Play. It was more like complain.
If Lowy isn’t able to pull off his biggest win yet, it won’t be without trying. Indeed, Australia, and particularly its football followers, should be indebted to him, regardless of the outcome.
If there is one thing he has re-iterated throughout, it’s the message that the world’s showpiece is safe in our hands. Why would you risk it elsewhere, he has argued, hoping that, when push comes to shove, and others start to fall, that message will resonate more and more.
But it is a message also being espoused by the United States, who, like Qatar, also have the dollars.
Ultimately, it could be a battle between the dollars of Qatar, the sense of Australia and the dollars and sense of the USA.
Either way, Lowy and his crew have given it a fair crack, and Australia has undoubtedly made a favourable impression on the powers that be in Zurich.
The fact we are even in the mix is a story worth celebrating, but if Australia can survive till the last ballot, and somehow summon the 11 or 12 votes it needs, it will, to borrow a Lowy line, “be the icing on the cake.”
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