If one event can make the five-ring circus of the Olympic Games seem modest it’s football’s World Cup. If the 2022 championship comes down under following Friday morning’s FIFA executive committee bid vote, Australia can expect what football chief Frank Lowy calls a “nation-changing event”.
The Olympics consume one city for a fortnight.
The World Cup consumes a whole nation for a month.
It is watched on TV not just by most people in most places but – forgive some poetic licence – practically everyone everywhere.
The estimated cumulative audience is four or five times the world’s population.
Governing body FIFA has 208 member countries – more than the IOC or the United Nations.
If Australia wins FIFA’s vote in Zurich the event will embrace much more than the 10 match cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Townsville, Gold Coast, Newcastle, Canberra and Geelong.
The fact that 64 base camps must be selected – two per team – will bring regional Australia into play in a big way.
Think of the way the Socceroos went rural, opting to make home in a swish chateau in leafy southern Germany in 2006, then a five-star hunting lodge outside Johannesburg at the 2010 World Cup.
The 32 finalists will also spread themselves across 48 training grounds – the 12 match venues plus three others within striking distance of each.
The sheer scale of the World Cup surprises even those who have a good idea what to expect.
That was the experience of seasoned Australian players like Lucas Neill and Craig Moore in 2006.
“Nothing can really prepare you for it,” said Moore.
“The whole world really is watching,” said Neill.
Launching a bid is in itself a massive logistical undertaking.
Australia’s cost around $45 million, rumoured to be half the amount spent by the United States.
It’s to be hoped size doesn’t count, for Australia’s bid book, handsomely bound in kangaroo leather, runs to 764 pages, a mere novelette compared with 1250 pages for England’s 2018 World Cup tilt and 1700 for Australia’s main rival the US.
Australia’s bid was accompanied by 84,000 pages of annexes.
That is a reflection of how detailed FIFA’s specifications and requirements are, from big-ticket items like seating capacity, car parking, proximity to airports and CBDs, ticketing, accreditation, accommodation, transport, hospitality, medical facilities, doping control, broadcasting and environmental issues to minutiae like flagpoles and the width of players tunnels.
“This is arguably the most competitive events bid ever,” said Stuart Taggart, head of bid operations for Australia.
“FIFA has never before decided two host cities at once (2018 and 2022), and rarely do nine sophisticated countries get involved in such a big bidding process as far as 12 years out from the event.”
FIFA’s executive committee will decide hosts for both the 2018 World Cup – from a field including England, Russia, Belgium/Netherlands and Portugal/Spain – and the 2022 event from the US, Australia, Qatar, Japan and South Korea.
“It does afford the winners the opportunity to deliver the best ever World Cup because they have so long to plan it,” said Taggart.
FIFA’s plan was to maximise revenue streams over such a long lead-up time, but critics say 12 years is too long in advance to name a host city.
Much can change in that time, they argue, and what looks like a perfect host in 2010 can end up being far from it in 2022.
One thing that won’t change any time soon, if ever, is the World Cup’s pre-eminent place in global sport.
Billions of dollars are involved.
Australia’s bid puts a price tag of $2.8 billion on readying the country for the extravaganza.
But much more is at stake in terms of television rights, tourism and other economic benefits, not to mention the inestimable value added to Australia’s standing in the world.
Australia’s bid includes an economic impact analysis which forecasts $3.9 billion in direct expenditure from items including tickets, accommodation and meals.
It is based on projections of 4.7 million spectators and expects to create 74,000 full-time equivalent jobs and an increase in gross domestic product (GDP) of $5.3 billion.
If Australia gets the nod at 0200 AEDT on Friday in Zurich expect Frank Lowy, notwithstanding his 80 years, to leap much higher than NSW Premier John Fahey did when Sydney won the Olympics in Monaco in 1993.
Citius, altius, fortius – faster, higher, stronger – may be the Olympic motto.
But the World Cup is simply big, bigger, biggest.
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