Take a look at the article linked by Adrian. Of the 18 points Foster makes, 1/3 have an anti Aussie Rules/Rugby League element. (my comments in parenthesis)

“Here are some messages that serve to assist football post 2010:
:: the values that football teaches any young child of teamwork, respect and humility;
(what team sport doesn’t)

:: the fact that football represents everything Australia wants to be this century, outward looking, welcoming and ambitious;
(OK, so Aussie Rules and Rugby League fans are inward looking, unwelcoming and unambitious)

:: the game as the single greatest connecting force of humanity across the globe;
(er.. how about food, clean air. Soccer is just a platform where people play out their desires, so if you want make love you can do at a football game, if you want to make war, you can do it at a football game.)

:: the fact that football stands alone among the codes as a technical game with deep tactical sophistication, not one based on aggression but on beauty and intelligence;
(OK, so Aussie Rules and Rugby League can only be played by neolithic cavemen)

:: the multiculturalism of football that allows Australians of any and every background to feel at home and to be a part of a common community;
(football at the individual level can be as inclusive or as exclusive as the people who organise it, so hats off to FFA for moving the professional level of the game away from ethinc based clubs. It is moving closer towards Aussie Rules and Rugby League in that groups divided along different ethnic/racial lines can feel part of the one family.)

:: the fact that football unites every Australian in a way that no other game or code can; the national regional and international scale of football that is unique among Australian games;
(this is true in the extreme, though cricket and rugby union obviously does a pretty good job. Still this is why there is a surge of interest every 4 years. it is not a convincing argument to follow the code at the local level)

:: the growth of the A-League and its goal to become number one in Asia and the foremost professional sporting competition in Australia;
(so you want to destroy Aussie Rules and Rugby League, just sopt at the word Asia.)

Ultimately, the A-League and football is better served by talking about its own game.

In that sense the USSF/MLS in the US have a pretty good system. They invite clubs from Europe to America to play against their teams. They know that there are plenty of people already watching soccer. Get them to a local game against a ‘name’ team and you get the chance to convert some to the local product.

They let the Mexican national team play there (about half their games over the last four years were in the US), thus, keeping immigrants more passionate about the game. The more passion for the game, the more likely they are to support the local game. (this is not really that relevant for the A-league but I find it interesting none the less.

Craig Foster proselytising about the wonders of soccer is probably the worst advertisement for soccer that there is. He has a mistaken perception that soccer can grow by converting non-sport lovers into soccer lovers, and he does this by arguing that soccer is so much better than the other codes. I believe this is a fundamental and highly damaging mistake. Most non-sport lovers are non-sport lovers because they they prefer less physical or non-confrontational pusuits (reading,movies,gardening…) . People who enjoy other sports are soccer’s target market and denigrating their current sporting interests does nothing for the code. Soccer administration seem to realise this since soccer is now played in summer so as to create more chances for sport lovers to enjoy their product.

The best way to promote the game is promote the product itself. Rather than spend half your time talking about other codes, talk about the game you love. That’s why Tony Tannous is the writer on here I enjoy the most. His articles are (almost always) about the game of soccer.

I understand Craig Foster is an op-ed writer and so his article tend to be on the inflammatory side, but if he really wants to see the game grow in Australia, he should spend more time promoting the game rather than denigrating others. Surely, the game is diverse and controversial enough within itself that he can focus more on it.

Also potentially easier to count than hitting the post – after all, the referee makes a clear decision then and there – award or corner or not (some small grey area when the second last person to touch it was a defender)

I guess some may like the simplicity of scoring in futbol, that is, there is only one way to score (put the ball in the back of the net, obviously many different methods to do it). While simplicity in games is generally a strength, in this case it leads to the issue of drawn games. In league play, this is not an issue (for most) but in a tournament you need a decision. There is nothing sacred about the scoring system – most games (including futbol) have changed their systems over the years.

If you decide that hitting the bar is worth a score, then you can view it as rewarding a miss, or you can view it as rewarding a hit. Just like in darts or archery, the better your aim, the higher your reward.

“Surely over 2 games a team will score, and if they don’t, well, the deadlock must be broken. Don’t reward teams for not scoring, by letting them win with some weird count-back system,”

I fail to see how hitting the post more than the other team is a weird count-back system. Easily incorporated into the existing rules, rewards somewhat successful game play, does little to change the existing tactics.

It would lead to small differences in tactics at tournament play – after all, if you have the edge in this variable then you might sit back and defend. But defending a 1-0 lead in woodwork hits is much more dangerous than a 1-0 lead in goals. The general point though is that less of the game would sit in stalemate. For more of the game there would be onerous on at least one team to attack.

“lottery it up with penalties”
How much of a lottery is penalties? How much of a lottery is hitting the woodwork? How much of a lottery is drawing lots? I think that if definitive result is desired then most people want a method that reflects the ‘better’ team on the day. I think woodwork does that better than penalties.

“used and loved by all 218 fifa countries”. Not sure a lot of English or Dutch fans would agree with you.

“it doesnt really matter what anybody here thinks” – geez, don’t destroy the dream.

Right, a little bit of mathematics that I won’t bore you with shows that if you increase average goals scored from 1/team to 3/team, then need for a penalty shoot out decreases from 17.5% to 5%.

Actually, going even further, if woodwork touches are counted, in the event of even touches, the team that touches first is the winner. Substantial incentive for attacking play I think.

Well, not impossible, but if you think you’re good enough to hit the bar, then why not score a goal.

First a side-note.: I don’t think in general draws are a bad thing. Sport is competitive by nature, but sometimes teams do not do enough to separate themselves. All perfectly reasonable for league play, but for a knockout tournament you obviously need a W/L result.

I think Michael C’s post is a pretty good way of thinking about the problem. In general, people want the result to be decided on regular game play. Of course, fans, in general, like the way the game is played. This is a conundrum – in futbol, since there is relatively little scoring, there is much greater chance of draws than in other sports – I would hasten to guess that, of ‘popular’ sports, it is the sport with the most draws. But if you increase the chance of a goal then you will alter the way the game is played. Is there a good way to increase the scoring in some fashion that reflects current game play but will not significantly change the way the game is played.

I always regretted the fact that FIFA killed off the idea of increases the size of the goal. After all, average heights today are about 5cm more than 100 years ago. A small increase in the size of the goal would do little to change game play but by increasing the probability of scoring it would reduce the need for an alternative ending to the game.

So, if we cannot have larger goals, a secondary tally that reflects game play could be used. I do not like Andy Roo’s suggestions because I think it changes the game play too much. Why not use the number of time the ball hits the goal post. This secondary tally would only be used at the end of extra time. If it is still even then we need penalties. (hitting the post is not that much different from a point in Australian Rules football, I guess) . On review I see that Andy’s link above mentions the idea, so I guess I am not so original, but still, perhaps, an idea worthy of consideration before the first drink at the bar .

Nice analysis, Pip. I look forward to the rest. I think this group, along with Australia’s, is probably the best chance for an AFC qualifier to progress to the second round. Korea gave a reasonable account of themselves in the last World Cup and Argentina and Nigeria are two highly volatile teams. Hopefully, Korea can get them at their worst.

Who the best teams are is a matter of opinion. You think this is courageous because you think the best teams got seeded.
We don’t know what motivations FIFA has when they seed. A seeding that uses a ranking system that everybody understands and that everybody agrees accurately reflects the strengths of the teams at the time would be a more transparent way of assigning this privilege.

There are plenty of ways to design a ranking system and I don’t think the FIFA one is very good. If you don’t use such a system then seedings are just the opinion of a select few. Fortunately, they actually play the games to test these views.

Quote: If the seedings for the 2006 World Cup had been determined by the FIFA World Ranking, the seeds would have been (using October 2005 ranking) Germany, Brazil, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Argentina, France, Mexico and United States, as opposed to the actual seeds of Germany, England, Spain, Mexico, France, Italy and Argentina.

This is actually not a fair comparison since they substantially revamped the Ranking system after the 2006 World Cup (partly to make it harder for teams in CONCACAF to be seeded so highly). Or to put it another way, if they had used the same system in October 2005, as they used in November 2009 then USA would probably not have been eighth on the list (though I haven’t checked this).

It is clear (at least to me) that seeding decisions are a purely political process for which FIFA rankings are used as a means to justify the ends. After all, for the 2006 World Cup they used the November 2005 rankings as part of their seeding formula. But magically changed to October this year to ensure that Argentina and England were seeded ahead of Portugal and France. The reasoning given by FIFA for this decision is that it is unfair because some teams played extra qualifying matches (which are worth 2.5 times a friendly).

I do agree with your general point, that FIFA should announce the seeding system for 2014 immediately after the conclusion of 2010. However, I do not agree at all with the ranking system.

The above point about changing the months, shows a direct weakness of the system – each team plays a different number of valuable qualifying matches. This is one of the reasons why Australia was always quite low on the FIFA rankings table, we never played enough of these valuable matches – our all time high of 14 came because we are now playing these games more regularly (and winning them too).

FIFA also skew the weighting against the poorer nations in another way – the value of a game is determined by your opponents ranking and the average strength of both confederation. So if you are from CONCACAF your games are worth less, but this means your opponent has a low ranking which penalises the value of the game again. Another way to look at it is that Australia beating Wales in a friendly is worth less than Greece beating Wales in a friendly. I believe the ranking itself should be sufficient enough determine the value of the game.

For me ELO is a better system, and would give the same seeding as FIFA finally decided on but in a much more transparent way.

Cattledog raises a fair point. I think a better wording (and this is not my own idea but something I read elsewhere) and that is
“A pass is not forward if it is moving to the dead ball line at a slower speed than the player who passed it at the time of the pass”

It’s funny how the concept of a forward pass relative to the ground is the easiest to explain and codify but not a functional rule for playing the modern game, whilst the concept of a forward pass relative to the player is essential for the modern game but difficult to codify.

OK, I’m confused.

Rugby Union:
From the http://www.irblaws.com/downloads/EN/irb_law_book_2009_en.pdf （I believe these are the official rules but if someone has a different link I would love to see it).

DEFINITION: THROW FORWARD
A throw forward occurs when a player throws or passes the ball forward.
‘Forward’ means towards the opposing team’s dead ball line.

No mention of the pass relative to the player. Can anybody direct me to some official IRB document that explains otherwise. I would check out the video but I can’t acces Youtube.

Rugby League
From http://www.rlef.eu.com/images/pdfs/rugby_laws_book2004.pdf (again, I’m not sure these are the official international rules of the game)

SECTION 2
GLOSSARY
FORWARD PASS is a throw towards the opponents’ dead ball line (see Section 10).

SECTION 10
KNOCK-ON AND FORWARD PASS
Notes
Direction of Pass 1. The direction of a pass is relative to the player making it and not to the actual path relative to the ground. A player running towards his opponents’ goal line may throw the ball towards a colleague who is behind him but because of the thrower’s own momentum the ball travels forward relative to the ground. This is not a forward pass as the thrower has not passed the ball forward in relation to himself. This is particularly noticeable when a running player makes a high, lobbed pass.

So this is just a matter of poor English, since the glossary and the notes are inconsistent. But it seems clear enough that the pass is relative to the player. This would be ruled at the instant he releases and not when the receiver catches it I assume but that is not clear. This last point is important since when a fast running player is stopped dead in his tracks momentarily after passing a high floating ball he will often be behind the receiver when he catches it.

Not to mention the heat in Qatar – Asian Cup 2011 is begin held in January because of the heat. They couldn’t do that for the World Cup – must be June/July (much to our own consternation). As for joint bids, Spain-Portugal and Netherlands-Belgium suggests that joint bids (at least from the Euro zone) are not impossible.

Back to the heart of the article – if the idea is to get in bed with Indonesia for a joint bid then forget it. For the Russian bid the largest distance between two cities is approx 2000km (Sochi to Yekaterinburg), for the US bid the largest distance is 4000km (Boston to LA). Melbourne to Palambang is 5634.502 (second Indonesian Asian cup host city).

However, on a general note, I think working more closely with Indonesia is good politics. They are the fourth biggest in terms of population, they are the 5th largest economy, they are (as far as I know) passionate about football, even their domestic football. More importantly, if this article is correct, they actual want to work with us. I assume that entry as a full member of ASEAN would mean Australia would enter the ASEAN cup that is held every two years around December. A chance, perhaps, for the A-League Socceroos to get more of a taste of Asia.

I agree that combining CONCACAF and CONMEBOL has merit and that there is a quasi-union already in place through the Copa America. The financial aspect could be the one thing that makes it work. If the U.S. have enough confidence that they will consistently be in the top 8 then it could happen.

However, South America is quite fond of its current qualifying format – single table, and Jack Warner is fond if his position as the head of CONCACAF, so I don’t see any merger any time soon. When Australia move to AFC it had OFC blessing. I don’t see Mr Warner being so generous.

Another practical problem with all this is that of different time zones. Travel for the teams is not a problem but you lose money by playing in a timezone that is in the middle of the night back home. The current system avoids (almost) all this by keeping things regional.

As for the small nations, I think you need to distinguish between 50-100 and the rest. I agree nations like Saudi Arabia, China, New Zealand, Honduras, Senegal would benefit. The rest would be out of the running before they started. That’s why I like the FA cup idea – an international Europa League if you like. Maybe I’m wrong but I imagine teams like India or Jamaica would be interested (what else do they have to play for). Each confederation submits 2 or 4 teams to the quarterfinals or round of 16. Given there are approx. 200 nations and only 5 possible pieces of silverware (under the 4 confed system) one more piece of silverware wouldn’t go astray.

That’s right. In fact, FIFA considers both the Czech Republic and Slovakia as successor teams of Czechoslovakia, so no team making its first World Cup appearances for the first time ever。

I am always torn on this issue. In my heart, I want the World Cup to representative of the World but, in my head, I think it is only fair that the best teams are represented. On a theoretical level I your suggestion a lot since it seems to strike a reasonable balance between the two objectives. Certainly, Asia and Africa couldn’t really lose with this system. But I don’t think there is anyway CONCACAF or CONMEBOL (or UEFA) would ever go for it. The Americas would go from 8 guaranteed spots under the current system to 4 and Europe would go from 13 to 4. Of course, they have a chance to get even more through the ensuing qualification process, but only by 3 in the case of Europe. In fact, you would probably get similar complaints to the ones you get know – UEFA doesn’t get enough teams in the round of 48 (Based on ELO ratings here is the group that would miss out on the round of 48 – Romania, Greece, Ireland, Norway) .

But ignoring these considerations the rest is easy to implement. OFC could be absorbed into Asia fairly easily and there are 14 FIFA official match day between summer 2012 and December 2014.

Two suggested changes
1. The automatic qualifiers to playoff in 4 groups of 4 with the top 2 then qualifying for the 8 team Confederations cup held in 2013. There are 6 official FIFA match days between summer 2012 and April 2013 so it could be done. To be honest I think it would be a UEFA/Americas affair but I am sure it would generate more interest than the current version. It would viewed much more like a mini World Cup. Actually, I think it would be a real money spinner for FIFA. And imagine if Australia qualified in this way. An example group could be Australia, Cameroon, Mexico, Spain (very tasty).
2. Penalise the home confederation one of their automatic spots (this would also be able to incorporate dual host bids). Just a personal preference, I guess but I think ‘home’ confederation advantage is already advantage enough.

Does the small nation get screwed in this, yep. But I hardly think more than now. If you only have a million people you are always going to struggle against larger nations. Maybe FIFA could run a secondary invitational tournament (Plate) for teams that don’t make their regional qualifiers, maybe a FA style tournament with regional knockout until the last 16.

One other suggestion from somewhere else I read that had merit and was also based on the four confederation system was to guarantee 4 places to each region and then award the remaining places based on the last 16 at the previous World Cup. It is remarkable how little the composition changes from year to year based on this system and how close they are to the current system – Europe gets one more, Asia gets one less. This would require little change to the current setup, except for the one big issue of merging CONCACAF and CONMEBOL.

Ah, it’s fun to speculate

oikee said
All codes target grassy roots, but if the NFL walked into Australia and said, we are taking all the AFL very best players, what would the public do.

Cheer and shout that their sons were being paid millions of dollars….

Thanks for that. To be fair though, I think that’s a pre-election agreement. The only thing I can find post-agreement is from March 31 –
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,25265493-10389,00.html?from=public_rss
or similar stories (which I also believe are from the same source) which states that

“Demetriou fronted the council with a proposal they hand ownership and maintenance responsibilities of the Carrara Stadium to the State Government – paving the way for the $130 million redevelopment to begin in July.”

Of course the journalist could be wrong too. I think it would be a first for a sporting body to fully maintain a ground they don’t own.

Pip, can you point me to the media release that says that AFL will pay for maintenance. Can’t seem to find it.

Much appreciated

Sorry, none that I know of, but the arguments for or against the Olympics would in the most part be the same as those for a Grand Prix.

Here is one – http://www.monash.edu.au/policy/ftp/workpapr/g-168.pdf Bottom line – Olympics lost $2.1B.

Also, to support Kurt’s earlier statements they tried to estimate the effect of the Olympics on foreign tourism by looking previous big events and found no effect of the Olympics.

The conventional wisdom is that the World Cup will attract more foreign tourists. During the event itself this will be true, but countries also experience a decrease in foreign visits in the months before and after such events. Presumably, tourist change their timing slightly to incorporate some time at the World Cup. The effect on an annual basis is very small. Similarly, some domestic residents who aren’t interested in the World Cup choose this time to travel overseas (they also change their timing slightly to ensure they miss the World Cup). This reduces any positive impact observed from the increase in foreign visitors.

Of course, the above point could be applied at the city level as well (so individual cities tend to overestimate the positive effects of an increase in domestic tourism.

There is no doubt that the AFL will demand compensation if their long-term stadium contracts are broken. Let’s try and put a ballpark figure on it. A few assumptions need to be made. I’m going to assume that there is 8 weeks unavailability of the G even though I think it would be 6 weeks like South Africa.

Everything else will be based on a best case scenario for the World Cup bid (i.e. minimum compensation). I’m only going to look at the AFL as I believe NRL grounds have more flexibility (since they have less crowds). I’m also assuming that there is no FIFA requirement for AFL to take any break.

Other assumptions
1 Etihad can be used.
2 Princess Park is available at the current ground capacity (35,000K)
３　16 games will need to be moved (hard for AFＬ　to argue that it needs more than this based on current constraints – in 2009 there was 1 round with no games and 4 rounds with only 1 game at the G). (Yes, there will be two more teams but no more Melbourne teams by 2018).
4 I assume there is no increase in average attendance from 2009 (bit of a stretch but as I said, best case scenario).

Based on 2009 crowd figures (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Australian_football_code_crowds) the lowest attended games are

13,004 Melbourne Fremantle
14,129 Melbourne Adelaide
23,149 Melbourne West Coast
28,279 Melbourne Western Bulldogs
28,707 Melbourne North Melbourne
31,470 North Melbourne Western Bulldogs
32,216 Richmond Sydney
32,583 Hawthorn Adelaide
33,274 Hawthorn Port Adelaide
34,466 Western Bulldogs North Melbourne
34,466 Richmond Brisbane
34,779 Richmond Hawthorn
34,794 Collingwood Port Adelaide
36,932 Melbourne Geelong
36,932 Melbourne St.Kilda
37,438 Melbourne Richmond

However, most of these are Melbourne teams so if I give every team that shares the G at least one home game that needs to be scheduled I get

13,004 Melbourne Fremantle
14,129 Melbourne Adelaide
23,149 Melbourne West Coast
28,279 Melbourne Western Bulldogs
28,707 Melbourne North Melbourne
31,470 North Melbourne Western Bulldogs
32,216 Richmond Sydney
32,583 Hawthorn Adelaide
33,274 Hawthorn Port Adelaide
34,466 Richmond Brisbane
34,466 Western Bulldogs North Melbourne
34,779 Richmond Hawthorn
34,794 Collingwood Port Adelaide
39,395 Hawthorn Melbourne
41,470 Essendon Brisbane
50,784 Carlton Richmond

So if the AFL could move 4 games to Etihad, then nobody misses out (assuming the rest are moved to Princess Park). There should be room to move these games to Etihad: in 2009 there were 6 rounds with 1 game.

Under this scenario what compensation should the AFL get, thousands, millions? I would imagine it is closer to the 1 million than the 10 mill. AFL revenue is $308m per year but most revenue is TV revenue. As long as they are able to broadcast the game those revenues will be unaffected by breaking the ground contract. I would think that moving these poor crowds to smaller venues would be a benefit. Melbourne quote a crowd figure of 20,000 to break even. (note that in all this I haven’t factored in the split round)

Of course if Etihad is needed for the World Cup then things change a lot but I haven’t worked through that yet.