Matildas' Asian domination means the Olympic dream is alive
The Asian Football Confederation has been waiting for Australia to stamp its authority on a continental competition, and while the Socceroos won the 2015…
Expert
Joined October 2015
56.7k
Views
31
Published
6
Comments
Published
Comments
The Asian Football Confederation has been waiting for Australia to stamp its authority on a continental competition, and while the Socceroos won the 2015…
Will/how/when will we become an Asian football nation? It is a question asked more in Australia than "So Sydney is not the capital of…
Just before the 2010 World Cup started, I interviewed Park Ji-sung. Then still with Manchester United, old Three-Lungs was always a gentleman and like…
Apart from the occasional visit, I have to watch the A-League from afar. This means I haven't a clue what I am talking about.…
In 2008, I was at Shanghai Shenhua's clubhouse watching an Under 13 Chinese team defeat an Under-11 Japanese team due to being able to…
On Saturday, I'll be at the Malaysia Cup final, with more than 70,000 people. It may be the country's third competition after the league…
After watching the Asian Cup match between Bahrain and United Arab Emirates in Canberra in January, I had to go to Melbourne for Jordan-Palestine.…
Connecting the A-League to events in Paris is the biggest example of a crazed imagination in Australia since Bouncer's dream sequence in Neighbours. At…
In Kaiserslautern June 2006, my affections were torn: I had been visiting and watching Japan for years but then the Socceroos had two Blackburn…
Oceania was comfortable. Australia was the head of the family, often the host for when the rest of the clan dropped round for a…
Victoria Police fear a “Fagin” problem”. It was a delicious opening. With the world celebrating “Back to the Future Day” The Herald Sun decided…
Dean.
In football terms, it’s harsh to say Thailand and Malaysia are 2nd/3rd world. The game there is embedded in the culture in a way that it is not in Australia and also Korea.
And you do see flares at K-League games, though less these days. The first game I took my wife to, we had to move because of them.
Think the A-League has problems? That's cute
Hi Ben from Phnom Penh. Thanks and good questions! Not sure what the FFA can do as an organisation in Indonesia at the moment. Things are such a mess. I did write an article recently though that as the league there is cancelled and the country banned, local players aren’t playing and aren’t getting paid. Something that individual clubs could have kept an eye on.
As to the second question, we can only hope but, again, this is a mess in many countries -the list is depressingly long. As you say, there is a reluctance to change. Indonesia’s government almost seemed proud of the FIFA ban while Kuwait seem to see theirs as part of an international conspiracy. Many people who run football in Asia are long accustomed to getting their own way. At least now, media in some of these countries have seen what has happened on a global scale with FIFA and are starting to realise that they can actually make a difference. Have seen this a little in Pakistan and Nepal of late. This is encouraging.
Wellington Phoenix are an Oceaniac problem in Asian football
Good to hear that I had a bonafide Aussie football experience!
Do we really fear fans, flares and football?
Thanks! Was fun to write this but a bit of an easy target really.
Do we really fear fans, flares and football?
Nobody really knows to be honest. I think it is more accurate to say that K-League crowds are very inconsistent than uniformly bad. Euro-snobbery, though perhaps not quite the same as the Australian version, does play a part.
Think the A-League has problems? That's cute