The Asian Century and the A-League

Where does the article state about getting New Zealand into Asian soccer? What would you do with the rest of Oceania IF NZ join Asia. NZ only has 4.5 million, it's too small a market to whet Asia's appetite anyway. NZ is stuck in Oceania for the time being.

I can tell you for a fact that USA and China's trade per year is worth over 500 billion dollars. It is not all one way..over 100 billion dollars of exports from the States go to China and even if it is one way how does that deflate the point that trade is going on between these countries at an enormous rate without them once having to talk about soccer? Do the Chinese traders say "damn, I must learn about soccer before I export to the United States"? No. do they learn about Tim Tebow - an American football (not soccer) player. No. Is this trade damaged by the fact that they don't have the common bond of soccer to talk about? No...clearly 500 billion dollars would seem to indicate no. Many people rehash what they read in the paper. I suggest a bit more original thought on the matter.

"This should ensure football retains government funding. " If all that you present comes to fruition shouldn't your sentence (repeated above) read . . . "This should ensure football no longer relies on government funding. "

Macca, you have clearly never done business overseas. Conversation is the grease that oils the wheels. It doesn't mean business never gets done if you have nothing to talk about but business is much, much easier, if you have common ground. And if a business man has two sources of supply and they are both the same price and one supplier has nothing in common when you visit, and one supplier when you visit chats about football or basketball or whatever your passion is, well, which supplier gets the business??? And football is talked about all over the world. Kids in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, everywhere, even those who don't speak much English still wear Liverpool or Barca shirts. Not many wear a Collingwood or Parramatta jersey.

The Asia situation is heavily over-estimated. Fact is most Asian folks are either not interested in soccer or even if they are prefer to watch the big European sides. They are like soccer supporters in Oz in otherwords, soccer-snobs.

Macca Basketball, Golf, Football are all popular sports in China & USA. Although, Demetriou tells us AFL is also making huge imprints in China & USA so, maybe, they're discussing someone's head high tackle; or was it holding the man or holding the ball?

Macca So the arts, sport, and behaviour have nothing to do with trade ... BTW the US / China thing is a tad silly as the trade is all one way.. or mostly one way... Then we come to the big question what is more important trade or understanding ... However your point is well made countries still trade without the sport, art etc... becoming involved however does have some advantages ... see from Austrad's chief economics... some articles ..you will need to add the http:// to each link below aurade.gov.au/Socceroos-world-cup-qualifiers-to-help-Middle-East-discover-Australian-business-potential/default.aspx austrade.gov.au/Australian-businesses-prepare-to-score-at-2010-FIFA-WORLD-CUP/default.aspx austrade.gov.au/Austrade-says-Socceroos-win-will-bring-export-opportunities/default.aspx Plus many others others

Talk about Basketball?

If you think people do business based on whether you can talk about Victoria Beckham's latest sponsorship deal "wow, isn't that car she is sponsoring fantastic" or on whether some one can talk about what team Thierry Henry plays for OVER AND ABOVE the dollars and cents of a deal you are sadly mistaken. The problem is most of you people READ this stuff in the paper from people like Craig Foster and then digest it as the gospel truth. America trades with China and vica verca more than any other set of two countries and yet they don't play the same sports (for the most part) ...yet they still trade? I wonder why? How do they do it if they can't talk about American Football, and Tim Tebow?

Fuss That's OK neither do I.... however it is a very important figure as we move forward as it gives football a competitive advantage over other codes they can never ever come close too... As an aside I often posted two to three years ago that the AFl should have spent the 300 million expansion into WS & the GC into China before their middle class choose their sports .... its not to late but I somehow think within 10 years China will have chosen Football & Basketball...

Sorry, Middy - I don't have any such info.

Macca Never underestimate the power of networking in business. And, when we are dealing with disparate cultures, languages, religions, etc. very often the only common forum for business networking is sport. And, football is the sport that binds every country on earth. I recall Tony Sage telling a story of how he was in Argentina to gain approval for a Mining Licence, but was confronting lots of red-tape and bureaucratic obstacles. During his stay in Argentina, because he was the owner of Perth Glory, he was invited the River Plate FC's Chairman's box. Another guest in the box was the Argentinean Minister for Minerals/Mining. Sage said that the day after meeting the Minister, approval for his Mining Licence landed on his desk. That's the beauty of networking ... football simply provides a common forum.

Fuss In your records do you have any records of pass Socceroo viewing patterns across Asia.... as far I I know the biggest for us was the Australia Japan match which was 484 million... the biggest of all time was the China Japan match which I think was over a billion...

Macca, I have to say as someone who travels thru SEA regularly for work related reasons –Aussie Rules , Cricket and the Rugby’s, just don’t pass the Cabbie Test!

Macca This article dosnt say stop playing cricket or aussie rules or baseball. Calling it Football would impress a Thai Business man as well as conversation about the EPL, Thai Football or even Australian Football. I assure you stats on aussie rules or how many flags Collingwood has won certainly will not. Nor would he be impressed if you only bought 200g of his finest Thai manure.

I think the great unknown is the economic shift that is taking places between Europe the USA & Asia... Australia's future is in Asia .... Football provides one of the few connections / relationships across all of Asia from the Middle East to more traditional Asian countries... To this end the half billion viewing audience does a lot for Australia as do and increasing will our ACL teams playing in the ACL... Of the other codes only RU is attempting to build a profile in Asia .... Moreover the buying power of the Indian middle class by 2025 is expected to be equal to Europe and the middle class of China to be equal to the USA by around the same time... Indonesia with 220 million people may be a poor nation but still has over 20 million millionaires ... Malaysia 60 million is also becoming wealthy ... The buying pattern in sports and leisure and social interaction that sport provides is growing rapidly ... FFA have a real asset that no other sport has and they need to carefully manage it...

This is true. I am just back from Bangladesh where the ability to have a brief chat about the Tigers and their recent batting & bowling performances does wonders to build relationships. I've had the same experience with chatting with Thais, Iranians and Japanese about football before getting down to business. Sport is a great ice-breaker and football has the greatest coverage in this regard.

Lets see, China 1.35b, India 1.21b, Indonesia 238m, Pakistan 179m, Bangladesh 148m, Japan 127m, Phillipines 92m, Vietnam 88m, Iran 76m, Thailand. The top 10 Asian countries by population have a combined population of over 3.5b people by themselves. Football is the most watched sport in the region. Regardless of if you believe the viewing figures or not, sponsoring the Soccerroos, or one of the A-League clubs in the ACL is going to get your company name out in front of a lot of potential customers.

Whilst there are differences joining the AFC & participating in Asia for Australia ,reminds me of British football in the early years of European competitions. I say this in the sense of taking a while to realise where the future of the game lies. Back in the fifties & sixties domestic football was in the minds of most Brits the pinnacle. So the FA cup winner would be regarded as more important than the European cup winner. Not so today. This is reflected also in the makeup of the top teams in England recruiting World Class players to compete with Europes best. Anyway I digress,coming back to Australia we still haven't woken up to the realities of our Asian football connection. As the European football economy grew & England had to grew equally to keep up,so shall the Asian Football economy grow & Australia grow to keep up. At this stage the ACL pays peanuts in comparison to the ECL,so were still in the "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys' era of Asian Football development. That will grow because the will is there in the hierarchy of Asian football for it to do so. We will grow with it ,because Australians don't like to be also rans in sport & the future money on offer will be a lure. As I've said many times Australian fans should go down on their knees & pray to the AFC,because until we joined Asia the game was going nowhere. Why?,Simply because it was top of the heap,king of Oceania. What was the benchmark we were. say no more. When I first arrived in Australia it took me a very short time to realise the difference between football & other sports. I even wrote to 'Sir Arfur" about it. They all had regular important year in year out competitions that garnered media attention,simply because they were regular,you expected them you turned up to them. Football very different the regular football competitions were insignificant to all but the diehards & even the National competition the NSL was never really regarded by the mainstream as anything more than an ethnic enclave whether we like it or not. So we relied on sporadic visits from overseas club teams to play the Socceroos or the occasional International team,who got more support at the match than Australia. In other words no large scale regular meaningful matches for football to grow on the back of. Now we have these in spades. Asian & World cup qualifiers,meaning a good chance of participating in those competitions after qualification. Then of course the ACL for our clubs. Both the International(Socceroos,Matildas etc) & domestic(A-League) arms of the game now have the means to measure progress & obtain success. But most of all it gives the game the higher profile Regular meaningful matches the game has craved for years. Lets face it when Parramatta Power played Perth Glory in front of 9,000 in the last NSL grand final who gave a stuff from fans to the media. Contrast that to Sundays Grand Final at Suncorp only 8 years later. Sure the media haven't twigged overall,but they will because in 2015 Asia comes to us in the form of the Asian Nations Cup. Thats also when the real business/football connections between Australia & Asia will begin in earnest.

a lot of sports quote "potential" audience (reach) rather than actual viewers ... so if it was screened in X number of countries, they add them all together and voila ... circle jerk time. not sure where they get the 484 million for the last one. Could include full game viewers and goal highlights i guess. Still would be the highest viewed game involving an Oz sporting team most years.