A-League: The Inside Story of the Tumultuous First Decade by Mooney Shaun & Stensholt John

Author:Mooney, Shaun & Stensholt, John [Mooney, Shaun]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Schwartz Publishing Pty. Ltd
Published: 2015-09-22T16:00:00+00:00

Back at home, the FFA was experiencing more tough times. It had to take control of North Queensland Fury after only one season of operation, and effectively kept it going for another year because it was still in the running for the World Cup at the time. To shut a team down in a market where a World Cup stadium was to be placed would have been a disastrous look.

An official FIFA inspection team led by the Chilean official Harold Mayne-Nicholls visited Australia in July 2010, inspecting facilities in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, where Socceroo John Aloisi and Olympic legend Cathy Freeman regaled the group with tales of success.

Time was ticking away – there was now little over three months until the voting would take place in Zurich, Switzerland. Yet again, matters turned sour. Just days before Buckley, Lowy and bid team member Stu Taggart arrived in Zurich in the last week of October for a FIFA Congress, two ExCo members were caught in a cash-for-votes sting by a London newspaper, the Sunday Times.

One was Reynald Temarii. He had allegedly asked for payments to fund a sports academy, while the Nigerian Amos Adamu allegedly told undercover reporters he wanted $800,000 to build four artificial turf pitches in his home country in return for a vote. FIFA immediately suspended the pair, meaning that voting was now down to 22 ExCo members.

Temarii’s had been one vote the Australian team believed it could count on. Another was Beckenbauer’s, given his close connection to their consultant Radmann. Australia tried to remain confident, though, believing it potentially had enough support to see it through the first round of voting and avoid elimination. It could then hope to build further support. It was also hoped that a growing friendship between Buckley and the leader of the Russian bid, Alexei Sorokin, might help, with European voters choosing Russia for 2018 and Australia for 2022.

Australia received a boost when a FIFA technical report praised the quality of its bid and facilities, both from a playing point of view and also for visiting tourists. Across the 16 categories of risk assessed by the FIFA team, Australia received the highest amount of ‘low risk’ assessments, 13, and then three ‘medium risk’ marks. The United States, by then considered the favourite, also received glowing remarks, while doubts were raised about Qatar’s bid, given its average midday temperature in July of 40.5 degrees, and the consequent need to air-condition all stadiums.

An important factor for FIFA was the commercial return the World Cup would generate. It was by far the biggest earner of television rights and sponsorship income for a sporting event in the world. The technical report said the broadcast times for an Australian tournament would adversely affect revenue and sponsorship money, although Australia had consistently argued that TV money from Asia – in the same time zone as Australia – would make up any shortfall from the game’s European heartland. The Australian bid also claimed $4 billion worth of economic impact for the country.

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