Since missing out on the 2022
World Cup in December 2010, the Football Federation of Australia and has remained
almost piously silent. Despite changing
chief executives, boasting one of Asia’s best teams, a domestic league that
continues to grow and the impending rollout of the new FFA Cup, a
knockout competition involving clubs from the A-League and various lower-tier
leagues across the country, the Federation’s mantra since late 2010 has been
“don’t mention the war”.
Today the war got mentioned like
Basil Fawlty.
This morning, via major
benefactor and Chairman Frank Lowy, the FFA requested FIFA pay back the the $43
million spent by the nation on their failed 2022 World Cup bid. The move results from FIFA tacitly acknowledging
that the tournament to be staged in Qatar will almost certainly be played in
the northern winter to avoid local temperatures
in excess of 40° Celsius. This understanding
is also a
significant backtrack on prior statements made by executives both from FIFA
and the Qatari bid commission.
With a new Cup tournament beginning in 2014 and hopes
of replacing
coach Holger Osieck with someone more personable/charismatic/nurturing – and
therefore more expensive – either before or after next year’s Big Dance, that
$43 million would really help Australian football. That half-a-latte chipped in by every Australian
constitutes more ready cash than the FFA could ever hope to see again and so would
be very handy – especially if Guus
Hiddink’s back in the frame (which he’s not).
The reparation request suggests
that the FFA wouldn’t have placed the bid had they known that changing tournament
dates was possible. The request is also framed
by a particularly murky bid process which is still being “investigated” by FIFA’s
ethics committee.
Even with the obtuse and confused
selection method, Chairman
Frank Lowy’s position is both optimistic and curious. Despite – because of? – widespread misgivings
as to the integrity behind the bid process, some of the blame for the loss must
be placed at the callow nature of Australian football administration. The FFA entered a competitive bid situation
against powers like USA, Qatar and Japan administered by a body with only one
hard and fast guiding tenet – money usually talks. And the Australians’ $43 million is a whisper
when compared with what Gulf States are able to bawl.
In retrospect, it’s tough to work
out why the FFA ever thought they were anywhere near pole position.
FIFA will not grant the request –
why should they? If they were to
recompense their irritated Aussies, then they open themselves up to the lawyer’s
best frenemy, precedent. Any club who
felt irked by a hosting decision (and Australia had reasons
to be very annoyed indeed) could then expect to request – or sue – the
governing body and pocket all or part of what they spent. This puts the Australian party line on a par
with the Ireland requesting
to be a 33rd team at the 2010 World Cup.
It’s somewhat comforting to know
that the FFA hasn’t abandoned all of its resentment towards the FIFA executive:
Australia was (now, perhaps naïvely) seen as one of the frontrunners to host
the tournament yet received
only one vote. But the manifestation
of that resentment now makes the FFA an object of footballing derision. While the sentiments of the FFA represent those
of the greater Australian populace, they are far from realistic expectation and
have only tenuous legal basis.
When Ireland requested a trip to
South Africa, FIFA probably laughed privately before responding with a
courteous negative. Watch them do the
same with Australia.
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