Comments on: Competing Footballing Codes: Australia’s World Cup Bid In Trouble?

By: AFL Football Forums

AFL Football Forums — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:22:26 +0000

Although I could be accused of being biased. Never the less this is a very interesting debate.

“According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics:” interesting how you can use statistics to bend the debate.

Lets not forget what our AFL boss Andrew Demetriou said that although we are an “indigenous code” we would be prepared to move aside as long as it does not come at a “financial cost”. I’m sure between the AFL, The Australian Soccer Federation & the Australian Government something can be worked out.

Although Soccer may have a high participation rates is financial contribution is minimal, you only have to look at Australian Tv rights. Melbourne, the sporting capitol of Australia (arguably of The World – No other city can boast our facilities and events), which happens to be the home of the AFL has a proud cosmopolitan history that would love to host a world cup, we have a passion for all sports. Melbourne also has a massive Italian community, Scottish, Yugoslavian, Dutch etc, etc, etc Did the bureau of statistics also tell you Melbourne is also the 2nd biggest Greek city in the world, 2nd only to Athens!

So please dont ask us to sell our soul, to pay homage to our past..

By: australian sports

australian sports — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 10:43:20 +0000

I heard Australia’s World Cup bid team has been accused of handing out inappropriate inducements to FIFA ex-co members and misleading its own government over how taxpayers’ money is spent. I hope everything will turn out just fine.

By: Keith Warden

Keith Warden — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 03:13:28 +0000

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics: (info obtained from the ABS website: 4156.0 – Sports and Physical Recreation: A Statistical Overview, Australia, 2009
Latest ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 10/23/2009

By far the most popular organised sport for boys in the year ending April 2006 was Outdoor soccer which was played by 268,500 boys (20%), well in excess of the numbers participating in the next two most popular sports – Swimming with 225,700 (17%), and Australian Rules football with 188,500 (14%). For girls, two sports were predominant – Swimming with 236,800 (18%) and Netball with 224,100 participants (17%). The level of participation by girls in both of these sports was more than double the level of participation in tennis, which was the next placed sport with 85,800 participants (6.6%).

I add this quote from the ABS above because the debate (within Australia) about which code is dominant or most popular is based upon opinions that do not take into account one crucial element…. facts.

By: Rob M

Rob M — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:39:00 +0000

Love Daves Dec. 9 comment, but Lewis, Dec. 15, it’s FIFA & FFA who are pig-headed & arrogant, not AFL/NRL who are being told the AFLs season will be largely destroyed costing them hundreds of $ millions, their demands on Australias taxpayers & culture are fantastic especially considering how small the “world game” is in Australia. Let a country that loves soccer pay for your big off-season party (world cup) & I hope it goes well for you, it’s just not nearly worth it for us to do it.

Please read Mr. Footballs blog on the atrocious business aspects of this, on so many levels, for Australia & Australias’ main football codes, AFL & NRL. http://barklystend.blogspot.com/

By: humza

humza — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:52:20 +0000

Darb, you are not estimating right about the ability of Australia. It is enable to host World Cup.

By: Rob M

Rob M — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:05:58 +0000

I feel for the soccer fans, but soccer is about as popular in Australia versus Australian Rules & Rugby as table tennis is in the UK compared to UK soccer.
So the soccer people want the Australian government to spend millions preparing the venues for world cup, insist the far, far more popular Aussie rules & Rugby matches not be played for 3 months in the middle of our seasons, no music concerts or non FIFA cultural events for 12 weeks & very little promotion for anything other than world cup permitted for a year leading up to the cup. Then after the Australian taxpayers and other sport codes have lost many $ millions due to this, FIFA wants a lot of the profits. All this for a sport just a few very vocal Australians care about.
Would the British spend & lose many millions & do all that & interrupt their football season to accommodate a world cup for a sport that’s popular in other countries, but the British don’t care for? No I don’t think so! And the above is the situation.

By: Lewis

Lewis — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:37:34 +0000

Australia has the infrastructure and stadia to host the world cup today if they had to, stadiums like ANZ stadium, the MCG, Suncorp Stadium and Sydney Football Stadium are all world class stadiums capable of hosting world class events. Australia is also part of the Asian Football Confed., at present asia is the fastest growing football region in the world. At present we do have a problem, this being the pig-headed, arrogant ‘leaders’ of the AFL and NRL can’t seem to see that Ausralia hosting the world cup would be a major success for our country, not only in revenue but in creating an attractive global image. Overall, Australia has the stadia and infrastructure to host this event, all that is needed is a little comprmise from our fellow sporting bodies.

By: The Sweeper: Australia’s World Cup Bid – This Is A Knife | Pitch Invasion

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:31:00 +0000

[...] week, we covered the major dispute in Australian sport over the country’s 2018/2022 World Cup bids, with the more popular rival footballing codes of Rugby League and Aussie [...]

By: Stan

Stan — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:19:15 +0000

Interesting. I think you have the wrong impression on the revenues, though Mr. Football. FIFA doesn’t take all the ticket sales–in fact I don’t think they take any. I believe they make all the money from TV. In 1994 when we hosted, US Soccer made $50 million on the tournament.

That said, they will force all the venues to be clear for the entire three weeks, and that’s got to cause some hardship to the AFL teams (NFL teams don’t play in our summer).

By: Adrian Ludbrook

Adrian Ludbrook — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:55:42 +0000

I’ve watched AFL in one of the stadia that would be part of the bid, Subiaco Oval in Perth, WA. The stadium was superb, the AFL match (Freemantle vs Carlton) wasn’t, but that’s personal taste ( I can’t watch NFL either, it’s all the stopping and starting). However, back to the point, the ‘Subi Oval’ whilst primarily an AFL venue has been used by Perth Glory for big games when they needed extra capacity and also as a venue for the Rugby World Cup and worked fine, it’s no different to watching a game at any of the stadia in Europe with an athletics track.