Why Australia should host the 2023 Women's Football World Cup

I just had a look at some of the figures for Canada's hosting of the Women's World Cup a couple of years ago. The average attendance was well over 25,000 but there was a pretty big variation. The lowest attendances were in the early stages, in Atlantic Canada - 11 or 12,000 - but that was in a small stadium in an area with a relatively small population. The average attendance at the six games the Canadian team played in was over 48,000. There were seven games, including some early in the piece, and not involving Canada, that drew over 50,000. So if Aus hosts this, it has to make sure it gets the "mix" right because there's more interest than the average curmudgeon on this thread believes.

i think they should, because they have tried so hard, same with all other nations, but matildas especially. it would be great for our girls to have some yeward, including sam ker!!! THATS ALL I HAVE TO SAY. FOLLOW ME ON INSTRAGRAM FOR MORE INFO @footy_fan_09

The main barrier to the men's WC idea was the impact on the AFL or at least that's where the biggest noises were coming from. So without ignoring NRL and union, that is still true. The Women's WC could work well without MCG or Etihad or the new Perth AFL Oval. Adelaide is unlikely to host latter stages so Coopers upgraded to around 25-28,000 is enough and the existing property has the room. Don't know Sydney so well but how many more Penrith size grounds are out there? Surely a few relocations of NRL/Super Rugby is not that hard as general crowds sub 20,000. Time for govts to take football seriously anyway, are you going to omit Gold Coast from WC based on the Titans or Suns? They have had a dream run from everyone and done bugger all! Sydney is a shoe in for Final and Telstra preferred over MCG because the NSW govt seem to have backed rectangular field sports and football is key tenant. Besides the we love women's sport mantra and .. is being put to the test. Denying hosting this event may deny Australia a real chance to win it. Somehow another decade as a World Netball power isn't going to ease the pain!

jb. All good. If I was going to make an additional comment on QEII it's the capacity - 53,000 is too large for Roar when what they need is 25k. It could be reconfigured of course but then why should any club move there to fix someone else's problem?

That will not be the slightest problem, The Olympics here had some incredible legislation where they could get away with doing anything, the same goes for West Connex. NRL is no issuer they have AAMI, Parramatta, Cronulla, Gold COast, Brookvale, Penrtih, Kogarah, Leichardt, Cambeltown, Gosford, Canberra, North Sydney Oval. plus could play matches at various other locations like in Perth, Adelaide, Super Rugby no problem either, the season will be over. The only mob put out will be the AFL , they aren't going to want to pay for maintaining Etihad they have already asked for 300 million of tax payers money for Etihad so the government has them by the balls there. Tasmania could host double headers each week in Launceston and Hobart ,you still have the WACA, Spotless stadium, Cairns,Manuka, NT they could easily work around it.

Pacman -That's what Adidas set out to prove and weren't they given a "doozy" in their sample for the Olympic Committee of the time "knew" that the USA was not a "soccer loving country",at least that's what we were told.. Cheers jb.

Pacman and Waz- Yes I was aware of the discrepancies in "ownership" though why two publicly elected bodies cannot cross communicate in this day and age is beyond comprehension. Pacman, I was present when 60,000 people attended the opening day of the Commonwealth games and don't recollect any great hardship in getting to, or leaving the Stadium. Re,"facilities",there could be ample opportunity to set up food and drink stalls "in ground" and although trains would not be available the BCC has ample buses to service the stadium,after all, very few "games" would be being played at what one would term "peak business hours". Waz, the QE11 stadium has actually undergone 2 or 3 redevelopments since the heady days of the Commonwealth Games in 1982 but to the best of my knowledge none of the money spent has resulted in an overall improvement in usage. The new grandstand would not have been cheap to build but who sits in those seats and how often in those 35 years have they been filled?. Those are the questions that need to be answered. The other snippet of knowledge for both of you is that the Broncos biggest ever crowd was set, not at Suncorp,but at QE11. Ah, the intrigue of local politics. Cheers jb.

Thanks for the interesting information jb. I was not aware of that detail, but it is my understanding that football played at any Olympic Games since WW11, and possibly earlier, draws total audiences greater than all other Olympic events combined.

pacnman - You may or may not be aware of the fact but when the Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles in 1984 there was a move afoot to oust football from the competition due to the "fact" of the professionalism in that sport. Adidas at that time undertook to do a financial study into the Games and how they would be affected if football was removed from the scene. The result of that study was that those 1984 Games would have been a financial disaster if the football comp. had not been included. Taking football out of the Olympics has never been mentioned again. The final game in Pasadena attracted 102,000 a figure that was not surpassed until------surprise,surprise, the 114,000 that attended the final in ------Sydney in 2000, played between Cameroon and Spain. Cheers jb.

Nor likely to again jb,unless the US host another WC. Not many countries in the world, if any, possess the infrastructures found in the US. These infrastructures are not restricted to playing venues, but extend to accommodation, transport, food and drink, and on it goes. add to these the enormous number of well known tourist attractions found in that country, and little wonder their WC was so successful.

Location jb. Suncorp is event friendly due to the large number of social entertainment venues at close quarters. QE11 on the other hand may as well be in the middle of nowhere rather than in the middle of suburbia and lacks the entertainment venues that event goers seek out before and/or after the event they are attending.

ha ha, yes I do. I was thinking more of places like Central Coast and The Gong. Hopefully my wife doesnt read this ... she's from Adelaide lol

out of curiosity .... you dont consider adelaide a major population centre?

That's the frustrating point; the difference is ownership - QEII is owned by the City and Suncorp owned by the State so when the State brings concerts and events to town they get put in the Stadium the State owns. Not least to pay back the huge overspend. But QEII undergoes a huge transformation soon with the building of the netball CoE which makes the stadium next door ripe for development surely? But then you get on to a location for Roar and the impact of a potential second team - Strikers/City would love Roar to move south and leave them in the north, an Ipswich bid would prefer the opposite of course, as would any potential GC bid. My view on that is a fairly strong one ... the statistics say Roar draws there 14k average from around 65,000 unique buyers which probably equates to 90,000 individuals (eg a unique buyer purchasing a ticket for themselves and one other person) and Roars stats is they're pretty much coming from all corners of brisbane so any move has to be thought through carefully. Staying central or north/east towards the airport is crucial as are good transport links - as much as people say they dislike Suncorp it's an easy place to get to no matter where you live. But I think Roar will be gone from Suncorp within 5 years, unless the stadium changes its event strategy (and why would they?) the question is to where?

Brainstrust - Financially the most successful World Cup ever held was in the USA back in 1994. The figures generated are staggering and still stand today as the best ever even though the aggregates in following World Cups have been aided by an increase of another 8 countries to the final series of games. To those who have mentioned potential problem areas the preliminary comp. was played across 3 different time zones with only the final games allocated to the West Coast. The average attendance to EVERY game played stands at 69,000 per match with a total of 3.6 million fans attracted through the turnstiles. The rather strange factor to be considered is that not one "new" stadium was built to house any of the games played,the final matches being played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena attracting crowds of over 100,000. No World Cup played since has generated such figures . Cheers jb..

Waz - No one ever seems to ask the question,why do we have to have concerts at Suncorp when we have a mausoleum of a stadium lying idle out at QE11 a place quite capable of handling crowds the same size as Suncorp albeit the need to better organise transport to the ground for these singular occurences. Over the years this stadium has had millions of "public money" dollars spent on it and yet I doubt there is anyone who could tell you when it ever had to raise the "house full" sign. Roar talk quite openly of nurturing their connection with the Logan area and yet I have never seen that suggestion expanded to include QE 11 as an HAL game venue. Any views?? jb.

All the stadiums you mention are multi-use; asking the other codes to vacate them for a month is impossible. Sydney could probably allocate one stadium to the WC, Adelaide, The Gong and the Central Coast one each as well. But the major population centres, doubtful.

Brisbane needs a new rectangular stadium, Suncorp is already hosting more events in summer and plans to increase that even further. In addition to the concerts we've got the Rugby Global 10's and the possibility of AFLX. Then you get in to the question of stadium availability for a WC bid, if it's during the rugby season those codes can't give up Suncorp for the exclusivity period FIFA demands. And there's already discussions taking place, they've even identified one possible location, and it doesn't need to be anything grand - a simple 25,000 seater is perfect for HAL and WC, just use the WC bid as added motivation. They key is, it has to be exclusive for football - as WSW will find out, expensive new stadiums get more and more content thrown in, the state of the pitch only matters to one code

The mens world cup would be no problem for Australia, no way you should contemplate including a country with second rate stadiums of lower capacity. Already you have Suncorp,Gabba,Carrara,SFS,SCG,ANZ,MCG,Etihad, new Adelaide, new Perth, Geelong will be upgraded soon,so 1 stadium capacity to be increased will be needed, Newcastle could be done by just adding two big stadiums to the ends at a low cost. Womens world cup will be a doddle wih 6 venues, and none needing to be built. WIll there be an influx of tourists from a womens world cup, I would think very few but the costs are minimal. Mens world cup attracts the most tourists easily about 500,000 since Australia has so many upgraded and up to date stadiums its one of the few countries that should bid. South Africa, Brazil,Russia,Qatar should never have bid because they have had to build most of their stadiums. The events countries should never bid for are the Olympics and the Commonwealth games. Just because they require too many venues to be built.

Do we need to build a new stadium Waz? I was under the impression that existing infrastructure was OK if it met the criteria set out by FIFA.