Once again, Australian football has been done over by those in charge. Adelaide United have had their season and their finances thrown into uncertainty by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The court ordered that the Reds must play off against Indonesian club Persipura Jayapura for a spot in the group stage of the Asian Champions League.
Adelaide had been granted direct entry into the group stage of the tournament as the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) had deemed Jayapura ineligible. The Australian club has already spent over $100,000 on arrangements for their first away match in Uzbekistan.
The AFC had strong justification for kicking Jayapura out of the Champions League, as they compete in a rebel competition sanctioned by neither the AFC nor the Indonesian Football Federation.
This should be a no-brainer for any person with knowledge of sport, let alone the body with the ultimate arbitrative power.
Australia has a long history of this sort of treatment. It was only the other week that the FFA were forced to change the kick-off time of the final game of the round three World Cup qualifiers to a ridiculous 9.30.
Who is going to take their families to see a game that will finish at midnight on Wednesday? How many of the 22,000 people who had paid for tickets will attend?
And why do we keep having these sorts of decisions go against us? Why do we only end up with one vote to host the 2022 World Cup?
Hopefully some common sense comes into play. Hopefully the FFA gets an exception and the game begins as scheduled at 7.30, while Adelaide win by a huge margin before receiving an apology from all involved. Finally, hopefully Qatar has their hosting rights stripped after a FIFA investigation confirms allegations of corruption.
Will any of this happen? Of course it won’t. Sam Keckovich is right: un-Australianism is rife among the world body. You know it makes sense.
And nothing will change until one of two things happens: either we win the World Cup, or Sepp Blatter and his bunch of cronies are removed from power.
Neither of these possibilities looks likely for at least a couple of decades.
Robbie
Guest
Interesting. This Purpuya isn't showing up anywhere. Can you link me to some literature on it?
Roon
Guest
No, you're thinking of haematology. Tom definately said Purpuya - immunology. Do you mean Persipura? I certainly hope Tom meant Persipura. You're right; of course it's fine. It would be the most complete and utter humiliation if a team with as much ACl experience as Adelaide fails at the play-off stage. Hey, if things go pear-shaped om Thursday, I see Jetstar is doing specials from Darwin to Adelaide ATM.
Mick
Guest
3 points to this anti Australia rubbish CAS - Persipura think they have been screwed & took it to court, if I got screwed by somebody I would take them to court to WC2014 qualifier v Saudi Arabia - Australia could of played the game in any of 5 time zones but chose the 1 furtherest from the majority of Asia & simultaneous final group games have been going on after the 1982 WC WC2022 - Australia were lucky to get 1 vote, look at the people who were selling the aussie bid, you are trying to sell the game & Australia to FIFA & we employ morons with no passion for the game to sell our bid
Robbie
Guest
I think you mean Purpura. In regards to the decision, I think it's fine. As long as they play at Hindmarsh I don't see a problem. Plenty of teams around the globe have very tough schedules. Some will bring up the issue of squad size but come on, it's just some Indonesian team with an incredibly bad international record. The trip to Tashkent won't be changed.
Roon
Guest
Purpuya? Tom, what's cellular immunology got to do with AFC/ACL? And what kind of bias are you accusing CAS of? Persipura did play in an AFC-sanctioned league at the time they qualified. Therefore they were eligible to qualify for a play-off. PSSI wrongfully instituted disciplinary proceedings prior to the draw. Persipura exhausted the appeal process. CAS upheld Persipura's appeal. Game on. Also, please congratulate your sub-editor for the obviously outstanding work in bringing your article up to a publishable standard.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Tom, you need to understand how the draw is conducted for these global tournaments. The schedule is not contrived to maximise TV viewing, or any other personal agenda. The draw is random and, for each Group, the schedule worked out by FIFA prior to the draw would simply have stated A1 v A2, D1 v D3; C3 v C1, etc. for teams in Group A, Group D, Group C, etc. respectively. So, for our Group, which is "Group D", each nation that was randomly drawn into this Group would have been given a reference "D1", "D2", etc. depending on the sequence of how they were randomly drawn from the pots. AUS was randomly drawn into Group D. We could just as easily have been in Group A, B, etc. So, it would be impossible to schedule the final games in similar time zones - e.g. Middle East or SE Asia or Central Asia - b/c, until the countries are randomly drawn from the pots, no one knows which teams will be playing in the final round of each Group. This is the nature of world football and I'm more than happy to be treated the same as any of the other 207 nations, who are FIFA members.
Tom Malone
Roar Rookie
You make good points. Firstly, I'm not accusing the CAS of personal bias, the main problem I have with it is that they Purpuya do not play in an AFC sanctioned league and therefore should not been eligible to qualify. Secondly, some forethought by those involved would have been ideal for the scheduling. They must have known that the games must be played simultaneously, so why not schedule the games in Saudi and Oman to take advantage of preferential time zones?
Ben of Phnom Penh
Guest
CAS are independent and I do not believe have any bias for or against either Adelaide or Persipura, it's probably the first time they have even heard of either club. Sure, it's frustrating, however it probably has been even more so for Persipura fans who almost missed out. Claiming some anti-Australian agenda is tin foil hat talk.
Roon
Guest
Imagine, if you will: Last year AUFC played in the official A-League. FFA and our 'official' league was so dodgy, AFC only gave us half a spot in the ACL. We were poorly run, with very few teams; (one was full of foriegners from another confederation!) Just say AUFC won the previous season's official A-League and expected to take your place in the ACL play-off draw, only to find out FFA had a change of management who refused to put your documentation in, attempting to substitute one of their favourites instead. Remember FFA was, and still is, a shambles; warned by FIFA to get its house in order or be banned from international competition. It disbands the original A-League without a viable competition in place The new FFA board starts up a brand new 'official' Super-League, initially with 36 clubs (contrary to FIFA regs) leaving out some key A-League teams. They and the minor league backers (News UnLtd) from last season say, hang on, this isn't right, let's just revive the original league. AUFC stays with most of last year's A-League teams along with some from the new 'official' Super-League, and relaunch A-League which gets branded a 'rebel' league. AUFC and your fellow 'rebel' A-League teams kick off to a good start, fully knowing as FFA and News does, that by the time ACL group matches start, FIFA and the Australian government will pressure FFA into resolving the 2-league issue. AUFC appeals the FFA's wrongful omission to CAS for reinstatement to the play-off spot. 3 months late, the FFA 'official' Super-League finally gets off to a poor start, now with only half the initial participants. Over at the CAS, AUFC win your appeal and are reinstated to play an Indonesian team, who walked into the group stage when FFA shafted you for the group stage spot. The Indonesian team is run by a hack lawyer (think Schapelle Corby's) who thinks he can get FFA, FIFA and ACL to gang up on you at CAS and have it overturn its decision. Riled up, AUFC supporters bombard their Facebook page, but the Indonesians civilly debate the situation in the proper forum. In Switzerland, FIFA runs dead, FFA go 180 and publicly backs AUFC, CAS order stands and ACL abides by the umpire's call. Game on. Meanwhile Julia G gets Mark Arbib to sit down with the FFA, News, some team owners (Well, actually only one - who owns a team in both the 'rebel' A- League and your opponent's league - who's dad is tipped to be that country's next leader) agreeing to merge the two competing leagues for the good of the NT, hold free and fair FFA elections, (this time banning ex-criminals from holding top office). This pleases not only AUFC, who look like getting their first shot at glory in the ACL, but also FIFA, who look forward to the end of a bitter Super-League football civil war. Even some of AUFC's opponent's supporters could see it was actually an equitable result, though they all hope to wipe the floor with them. Crazy times. This Thursday: Come on you Reds!
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Aussies need to lose the paranoia whenever we don't get our own way. 1. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is an independent institution unrelated to any sports organisation (FIFA, IOC, IAAF, etc). The CAS has nearly 300 arbitrators from 87 countries, chosen for their specialist knowledge of arbitration and sports law. I reckon the CAS knows & understands the law & regulations relating to football better than anyone on this forum. 2. The change in time of the AUS v KSA match is a "no-brainer". As far as I'm concerned it would have been ridiculous to not play the final 2 matches simultaneously. So, the question then becomes: "what's the best compromise for kick-off times"? There is a 7 hour time difference between Muscat & Melbourne. The OMA v THA match was scheduled to kick-off at 19:00 local time; AUS v KSA at 19:30 local time. A compromise involves BOTH match times being moved. It seems Aussies aren't used to the concept of compromise, which is not surprising our nation was founded & continues to be funded by the policy of taking whatever we want. So, the Omanis moved their game 4 hours earlier & we move our game 2 hours later. Imagine if the roles were reversed and we had to play our game in the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday as the Omanis are being forced to accommodate AUS?