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FFA boss David Gallop estimates it will take many millions of dollars of government funding to back Australia’s 2023 Women’s World Cup bid, but rates it a worthwhile investment.
The bid will be lodged by October and the winner will be announced next March.
With the federal election over, FFA will seek meetings with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and other senior ministers to try and secure more financial backing for the bid.
The previous government gave $5 million at the start of the bid.
“It will take a substantial investment, we saw that with the (winning 2015) Asian Cup (bid), we need federal and state governments to get on board
“But it will deliver close to $500 million in economic benefit for the country, so there’s a lot of value in this proposition.
“We’re talking about many millions of dollars (government support) but we’re talking about a worthwhile investment.”
Australia faces opposition from eight other bidders, one of which will be a joint effort between South and North Korea, while Japan is another Asia-based contender.
South America is represented by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia and South Africa and New Zealand are also bidding.
Gallop didn’t rule out Australia joining forces with New Zealand at some stage.
“We can certainly stay open-minded to that,” Gallop said.
“But at this stage we are going to concentrate on Australia and on talking to the federal and state governments about getting behind it.”
FIFA has nominated July-August as their preferred time for the tournament, which would place it in the middle of the season for all the other football codes, who normally have first call on the major stadia at that time.
“We will need to ramp up those discussions with other codes but we don’t need to necessarily do that until we’ve got the government support that we are now about to seek,” Gallop said.
He was also bullish about the sixth-ranked Matildas prospects at the World Cup starting in France in just over two weeks.
“We’ve made quarter finals before and we certainly want to get to that point and we want to move beyond that and we’ know we’ve got a special crop of players,” he said.
© AAP
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