The Sun-Herald

Ridiculous.

The next world cup is going to England. The home of the world's richest club competition has will not have hosted the event for 52 years.

The failure of Australian journalists and the FFA to realise this will result in millions of dollars of taxpayer money being flushed down the toilet.

Wake up Australia. Let's focus on making a third(!!!) world cup and forming a watchable domestic league first.

• by Ju R. on February 01, 2009 at 03:23 PM

America, again? For a country which couldn't sell seats for a World Cup final and more importantly call it 'soccer', who knows maybe even splits the game up into four quarters like all their other games, not matches games. I believe our biggest competition is from the Arabian Gulf, Indonesia should concentrate on feeding its people and considering that Australia has to give a massive amount of aid to that country, so technically if Indo gets the hosting rights, it would be an Australian tax payer incentive, don't you agree? The Arabs have money, spirit (trust me just ask any arab kid on the street, they could easily name the whole manchester united or chelsea squad at ease, something an American kid couldn't if they weren't of South American or Italian parentage of course) and talent (look at the Asian cup winners list if you don't believe me) and more importantly its never been held their. I think one of the two bids that the FFA made should have a consortium with NZ, maybe we could give them a quarter final and a few group games that no one usually watches or something. Anyhows our main aim would be to do as well as we can and get the Asian Cup in Australia before the World Cup, that way we can show Asia that we have a positive relationship and would like to build football in Asia, signing a few stars from Asian countries which arent very developed in football (hence Indo, who by the way are probabely only bidding just like Qatar so they can play in it, I mean they have not participated in a WC compared to us on qualification) would help as well. The first stage of Australian football would be to gain the trust of Asia, since that is our federation now, by the way we don't play with the boys anymore, we play with the men.

• by MAK on February 01, 2009 at 06:45 PM

does the decision get made after the completeion of 2010? because if the socceroos are a hit like last time, that will help immensely

• by mk on February 02, 2009 at 10:08 AM

It seems odd to me that all this money and energy is being invested on a world cup bid when we don't even get to see Australia's world cup qualifiers on free-to-air television. This is one way the government could really boost the cause of soccer in this country: by placing these matches - and perhaps even A-League telecasts - on the anti-siphoning list, thus making the game free and accessible to every Australian, a move that would likely have far greater an impact on the growth and profile of the sport in this country than any world cup bid - even a successful one.

• by Andrew Witney on February 03, 2009 at 01:49 AM

andrew w. (feb 3) - due to the poor handling of football admin in oz prior to 2005 the money needed to fund both the a-league and the national team, but especially the a-league, had to come from t.v rights money. foxsports was the highest bidder and would only take a bundled deal (both a-league and socceroos). if the ffa had not taken the fox deal the a-league would surley have folded. now, with the popularity of the game increasing, i expect this will change once the next t.v deal is done.

• by scooter on February 04, 2009 at 09:42 PM

I agree with one of the views posted. Why flush down all the money just to make a bid and lose instead of utilising that amount or much less to groom a world beating team and qualify for the W.C.
Why do the nations require bidding???
Some countires cannot afford to waste good money for a bid or two and lose.
Why cannot the W.C. powers to be and also the Olympic Committee have a list prepared including all the nations. Place these countires in some order of the region there are. If the first country on the list is unable to host the WC or the Olympics give it to the next or the next on the list in that region. Then to the next region for the next games. So countires do not have to dig deep just to bid and lose when the same funds can be utilised in much better ways.

• by Joao de Deus on February 22, 2009 at 10:43 AM

Scooter and Cav: I am not denying the fact that the FFA probably had to take the Fox-A League deal. Given years of mishandling by the networks and then a lack of vision when it came to football's rise in popularity, it was likely their only move, with regards to the local competition.

Being denied the right to see world cup qualifiers is another matter. I wonder if those games -- which attract pretty high ratings -- could have been auctioned off at a later date, with the networks likely showing more interest.

But that was not my point, and those who read carefully will see that. I was referring to what can be done now and in the future, and ways the government might facilitate the continual expansion of the world game in Australia. Drafting policy and and spending money in ways that ensure that as many Australians see national and international matches should, in my view, take priority over other ventures, like world cup bids.

• by Andrew Witney on April 13, 2009 at 03:03 AM