Quinton Fortune of England's Manchester United team fights for the ball against Goren Lozanovski of Australia's South Melbourne team during a game of the First FIFA World Club Championship at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Tuesday Jan. 11, 2000. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

Within five years of their Club World Cup appearance, South Melbourne FC had fallen on hard times, slipped into administration and did not even apply to join the new A-League, Australia’s premier division, set-up after the demise of the National Soccer League.

This month, South Melbourne FC took a welcome step towards something of a rebirth, as their home ground, Lakeside Stadium, reopened following a major renovation. The Age newspaper expounded that “Like Lazarus, the old South Melbourne football ground in Albert Park has risen from near-dereliction . . . And a pretty splendid vision it is, too.”

Indeed, it is. Designed by H20 Architects, the 14,000 capacity stadium is part of an AUS$60 million development on the lake in Albert Park. The photos below show the transformation of the venue:

The stadium is not perfect, by any means. There is, obviously, a strikingly blue running track encircling the pitch, as the stadium doubles-up as a track and field venue. Indeed, its refurbishment made it the premier athletics stadium in Victoria state, following the demolition of Olympic Park Stadium in Melbourne – a central reason for the state funding behind the development.

Yet in terms of the quality of the pitch for the game of soccer itself, Lakeside Stadium does have something going for it that many other Australian stadia do not: it doesn’t double up for rugby or Aussie rules. “We don’t have to share this ground with any of the other football codes, which means the surface doesn’t get damaged by rival codes and with no scheduling problems around other codes,” Melbourne South President Leo Athanasakis told Four Four Two Australia.

The club itself is hopeful the new stadium will kickstart a revival. Their storied past includes management spells by Ferenc Puskás and Tommy Docherty, and they once tried to purchase Denis Law and Bobby Charlton.

Hellas

South Melbourne FC was founded in 1959 through a merger of two clubs, Hellenic and Yarra Park, and became known as South Melbourne Hellas. The club found immediate success, winning the Victorian Metropolitan Division 1 North championship in 1960.

As the name indicates, Hellas were – like most Australian teams of the time – ethnically based, in this case in the Greek community. A number of Hellas’ players arrived from Greece in the 1960s, including John Margaritis, Savvas Salapasidis, Takis Mantarakis and Takis Xanthopoulos, according to the club’s official history. But not all of Hellas’ greats were Greek: former Manchester United trainee Ernie Ackerley became one of the club’s leading goalscorers in the 1960s. Hellas played at Olympic Park – Lakeside Stadium (originally known as Bob Jane Stadium) was not built until 1995 – and attracted crowds exceeding 10,000, including over 14,000 for an Australian Cup clash in 1962 with Juventus – the Sydney version. That year, 1962, saw Hellas win the Victorian State Championship for the first time.

But the connection to Greece was undoubtedly the club’s selling point. Also in 1962, Hellas played the Greek Air Force in what The Age trumpeted was “the most ambitious venture undertaken by an Australian soccer club”. The Greek Air Force’s appeal was that due to the country’s National Service, it featured some of the leading national team players on tour, and the series of friendlies in Australia was an expensive affair.

The club’s chairman, Thesues Marmaras, became a key player in Australian soccer, appointed as president of the Victorian Soccer Federation, this giving the club considerable power nationwide (in 1964, he was accused of collusion with a referee in a dispute with Fiorentina Soccer Club). Crowds continued to grow, reaching 20,000 for a clash between Hellas and Juventus in April 1966. That was in part due to the shrewd acquisition in 1965 of player-coach Kostas Nestoridis, a well-known Greek international. Hellas won the state championship in 1965, 1966 and 1967.

But by the end of the decade, the expense of acquiring native Greek talent became too much of a drain for the club, with results on the pitch far from reaching expectations: they finished fourth in 1967, third in 1968 and a poor seventh of 12 clubs in 1969, though they did win their first cup in the latter year.

In the early 1970s, the club’s identity shifted slightly – on the field at least – from Greek-domination. A number of English players were imported, alongside an infusion of local talent, such as striker Jim Armstrong.

Hellas finished fifth in 1971, but claimed the runners-up spot in 1971 and then won the state championship for the fifth time in 1972. In 1973, Hellas made an audacious bid to sign both Denis Law and Bobby Charlton, offering AUS$170,000 to sign the pair from Manchester United. Though neither arrived in Melbourne, further state titles followed in 1974 and 1976.

The National Soccer League

That run of success was timed perfectly for Hellas’ bid to become inaugural members of the National Soccer League in 1976. South Melbourne (as they eventually became known), though, were not ready for the big time of national competition. With competition for players increasing, South lost several of their leading stars, finishing 11th of 14 teams in 1976, a respectable third in 1978, but a dismal 14th of 14 in 1979. That year, South Melbourne was stricken low when three points were deducted for playing defender Tony Turner before he had received international clearance. The club’s official history calls it “the lowest point in the club’s NSL history and arguably in its entire history,” and says that “There were real fears that South would not be re-admitted into the League the following season.” Instead, Sydney Olympic were relegated.

From that low point, South Melbourne – now nicknamed the “Gunners”  - consolidated their NSL position in the early 1980s, with the emergence of talent such as Alan Davidson. They finished third in 1980 and second in 1981.

In 1982, that smooth progress was interrupted by a curious period for the club: after a poor run of results, coach John Margaritis was replaced by former Manchester United boss Tommy Docherty. Margaritis’ last days were miserable: The Sydney Morning Herald reported in May 1982 – after a defeat for the Gunners against the Marconi Leopards – that “Speculation has been rife that South Melbourne FC are ready to dump coach John Margaritis in favour of Docherty. . .Margaritis, knowing his job is on the line, was a lonely, dejected figure after yesterday’s match. He sat by himself in a corner of the dressing room, his drawn face and sad eyes telling the story.”

Docherty himself only lasted a few months at South Melbourne, a bright start under his rein petering out and the club finishing in sixth place. Docherty soon left, taking over at Sydney Olympic, where he had coached previously.

Yet the curious episode presaged a revamp in South Melbourne’s recruitment, and a glorious period for the club: fourth place in 1983 was followed by their first national championship in 1984, beating Sydney Olympic 4-2 over two legs. Crowds again regularly exceeded 10,000.

But South could not consolidate their success, and in the remainder of the decade, finished no higher than third place.

The solution to a return to glory, it seemed to South Melbourne FC’s management in 1989, was Ferenc Puskás. The Hungarian great was, of course, best known for his playing days, but he was also something of a legend in Greek circles, having guided Panathinaikos to two Greek championships and the 1971 European Cup final (they lost there to Cruyff’s Ajax). The 1980s, though, had been  rough for Puskás, who had achieved little recent success in an increasingly itinerant coaching career.

Puskás did not arrive a moment too soon. The club’s mediocrity in the latter part of the 1980s had seen crowds dwindle, and the club in debt to the tune of AUS$300,000.

By early 1990, Hellas president George Vassilopoulos was crediting Puskás with having turned the club around almost immediately. ”As far as the financial situation goes, he has created excellent publicity for the club and the money is now rolling in,” Vassilopoulos told the Melbourne Sunday Herald. “We had a debt of $300,000 at the end of the last NSL season and we have already cut this in half.”

With a fine midfield combination of Mike Peterson and Steve Tassios around whom to build the team, Puskás’ team improved immediately. They finished second in the regular season in 1990, though fell in the first leg of the playoffs, losing in a penalty shoot-out to Melbourne Croatia.

In the Grand Final, South Melbourne again took on local rivals Melbourne Croatia in a thrilling game. Despite being outplayed throughout the game, South Melbourne stole an equaliser with just a minute remaining in the game, sending it to extra-time and ultimately penalties.

Here’s the last part of the game’s normal time – skip to the 6:40 mark to see the equaliser, and some impressively wild celebrations from the fans:

And here is the decisive penalty shoot-out, won by South Melbourne to seal their second National Soccer League title:

The 1991-92 season that followed was Puskas’ last in charge, with South Melbourne finishing third and failing to make the Grand Final. Former South player Jim Pyrgolios took over, and while the club fared very well in the regular season, the playoffs were an utter disaster: South lost all three of their games, including a humiliating 7-0 defeat to Marconi.

The next couple of years saw little excitement, bar an eventful playoff game that saw South Melbourne miss the chance of a Grand Final appearance with defeat to Sydney Croatia at Parramatta Stadium, a game that hit the evening news as crowd trouble broke out:

In 1995-6, following the closure of Middle Park, South moved into Bob Jane Stadium. Yet the club’s identity was threatened as the Australian governing body insisted on new identities for its NSL clubs, in an attempt to give them generic glamour and remove them from their ethnic roots: South Melbourne suddenly became the the “Lakers”, with a hideous new crest to boot (along with a threatened lawsuit from the Los Angeles Lakers):

The 1997-8 season was a great success, with South Melbourne –  the “Lakers” identity having been quickly consigned to the dustbin of history – ending the regular season as champions, fired by John Anastasiadis’ 12 goals – the Greek forward had recently arrived from PAOK. 14,850 spectators packed out Lakeside Stadium for a win over that sent them to the Grand Final. There they faced Carlton, and Con Boutsianis gave South Melbourne the win and their third title with a late goal in a 2-1 win, scoring with a smashing strike:

The next season cemented South Melbourne’s place as the nation’s premier club, successfully defending their title. A watertight defense marshalled by goalkeeper Michael Petkovic saw them concede only 29 goals in 31 games, and go unbeaten at Lakeside Stadium.  That sent South Melbourne to the Oceania Club Championship, which they won in handy fashion to advance to the FIFA Club World Championship. There, South Melbourne lost each of their three group games by two goals, but they did get to do what not many can say they have done: play Manchester United at the Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro.

Yet their intercontinental exertions overstrained what was still a semi-professional outfit, as South Melbourne slipped to tenth in the league. That perhaps spurred the club’s decision to turn fully professional for the 2001-02 season, and they returned to form, finishing second in the regular season. They advanced to the Grand Final, with 2,000 South fans making the trek to New South Wales as they took on Wollongong. But a 2-1 loss meant South forfeited their perfect record in Grand Finals.

Mediocrity was an unfitting end to South’s National Soccer League tenure with mid-table finishes the next three seasons, one abruptly cut-off by the disbanding of the NSL at the conclusion of the 2003-04 season. Since then, until the opening of the renewed Lakeside Stadium, there has been little to brag about for South fans. But with Lakeside Stadium now gleaming, whispering of a move up to the A-League has begun, and perhaps new glory days are to come.

It was once the home of one of Australia’s finest teams based in Sydney’s southern suburbs, St. George Budapest (who later became St. George Saints), playing in Australia’s then-leading professional division, the National Soccer League (they won the league in 1983). The club had a rich history, having supplied almost half of Australia’s 1974 World Cup team. Notable players for St. George span the ages, from Charlie George (yes, that Charlie George) to Robbie Slater and even featuring an appearance by Ossie Ardiles in 1985. Tim Cahill’s brother, Chris Cahill, also now plays for the club. Their manager during many of their glory years, Frank Arok, took charge of the Socceroos in the 1980s.

Now, St. George Stadium is sadly dilapidated, and St. George Saints play only in a low-level New South Wales league, with just the hardiest of souls showing up on the terraces that once held packed crowds.

The below photos, by Chris Round (Flickr page), tell the story of St. George’s Stadium’s current state.

Thanks again to Chris Round for permission to use these photos.

The Age newspaper reported on how lavishly these services are being rewarded by the FFA:

Mr Hargitay is being paid $1.35 million by the FFA and has a success fee of $2.54 million. Mr Radmann’s work for the Australian bid, which the FFA has attempted to keep confidential, will earn him up to $3.49 million via a German consulting firm. He is also entitled to a $3.99 million success fee. As part of a separate contract, the FFA is paying Mr Radmann’s business partner, Andreas Abold, an additional $3 million for World Cup “bid book production and bid advice”. It is unclear if Mr Abold will also receive some of Mr Radmann’s fees.

As the Observer put it today:

Radmann’s career highlights: long-time Sepp associate, former managing director of ISL – Fifa’s marketing agency which collapsed in 2001 after paying £60m in bribes (Radmann was not implicated), plus allegations in 2000, all denied, about a scheme to incentivise key Fifa officials to back Germany’s 2006 bid. Radmann later stepped down from the Germany 2006 organising committee after awarding a lucrative contract to his business partner.

The Age explained further Radmann’s past:

Hargitay is not the only international soccer lobbyist on the FFA payroll. He is joined by Fedor Radmann, a German businessman who can speak four languages, loves opera and mountaineering, and between 1979 and 1989 was the managing director of sports marketing company ISL.

He is also a man rich in apparent conflicts of interest between his business interests and the sporting associations he represents.

The European company has been embroiled in a long-running Swiss court case over alleged bribes to FIFA and other sporting officials. The case was settled earlier this month after key participants agreed to make big payments, with a Swiss prosecutor affirming earlier comments from a judge that ISL had made improper inducements.

Once again, we turn to investigative Andrew Jennings to fill in the blanks on Radmann: who is, as Jennings puts it, “the self-styled Mr Fixit of the world game”.

The question is, what exactly is it that Radmann does that’s so valuable?

Nobody’s quite sure what Fedor does so well – it’s nobody’s business – but whatever it is, he learned everything from the Master. Thirty years ago Horst Dassler made him head of the Adidas International Relations Team – aka the Department of Dirty Tricks & Votes Fixing – and Fedor’s career has gone downhill, subterranean, into places you wouldn’t want your children marooned in. He must have developed night vision eyeballs because whatever Fedor does, he does it in the dark.

Radmann’s links to the global game and the World Cup go back decades, and reach to the highest levels of the sport.

In 2000, Radmann was selected by Franz Beckenbauer to play a key role on the Organising Committee for the 2006 World Cup to be held in Germany, touted as a “marketing and PR expert”. He had previously been the co-ordinator of Germany’s successful World Cup bid, one tainted by allegations of bribes paid to FIFA officials to secure the vote, as the Age recently recapped:

In 2000, shortly before the FIFA officials voted, Radmann was tied to a scheme to channel large payments to “trust accounts” associated with at least three FIFA officials. These payments were ostensibly for the broadcast rights to football matches that on the open market would have struggled to find a buyer due to their limited audience appeal.

In an associated deal, $1 million in consulting fees were sent to a Lebanese racehorse owner called Elias Zaccour, who was very close to leading FIFA officials.

The German media suggested these payments were sweeteners to impress key FIFA officials. Radmann and the FIFA executives allegedly involved in this foul play dismissed the claims, despite the documentary evidence aired by the German press. Radmann has not responded to questions from The Age.

Radmann’s role on Germany’s 2006 World Cup organising committee soon landed him in further public disrepute. The book German Football: History, Culture, Society detailed Radmann’s controversial tenure heading its marketing efforts, particularly with regard to the unveiling of the 2006 World Cup logo in 2002:

When the Organising Committee (OC) started its work on 1 January 2001, Fedor H. Radmann, the OC Vice-President at the time, was responsible for the section ‘Art and Culture’. Radmann, a close confidant of Franz Beckenbauer, however, came under immense negative pressure when the official logo was presented. The ‘creative disaster’ (as the renowned design magazine Die Form put it) was mocked by German designers and the national and international press poked fun at it. . . Those responsible, namely Fedor Radmann and the OC, were promptly taken to task by politicians, as they had neglected to carry out a formal competition for the logo.

The controversial 2006 World Cup logo

It was revealed that Radmann and the OC had selected a Munich-based design company, abold, owned by Andreas Abold, to work with London-based Whitestone International on the logo design. Abold just happened to be closely connected to Radmann, with business connections going back thirteen years. The German press increasingly poked into Radmann’s connections with many of the companies central to the World Cup in Germany: his previous work with adidas and to Leo Kirch’s failed company ISL in particular.

By mid-2003, the controversial wheeler-dealer Radmann had to resign from the OC, acting from that point on as an ‘OC special advisor’ only.

The FFA has since called on both Radmann and Abold to work on their bid, to return to The Age report again:

Australian press reports that mentioned the recruitment of Abold failed to mention Radmann.

As secret FFA documents from 2009 reveal, Abold was awarded two Australian government-funded contracts after being appointed sometime around early 2009. These contracts were handed out in confidential deals, done without any, or minimal, competitive tendering.

The first contract is worth $3.2 million and is labelled “Abold 1: Bid Book Production and Advice”. It requires Abold to help design and produce Australia’s Bid Book, a crucial marketing document that promotes the nation’s case to host the cup.

The second contract is more mysterious. It is worth $3.7 million and is labelled “Abold 2: International Relations/ Advocacy.” It may be more accurate, however, to label it as the Abold and Radmann contract. For, as other FFA documents make clear, the Abold 2 contract actually goes, at least partly, towards financing Radmann’s duties.

It also includes a very hefty bonus to “FDR” (Radmann), should Australia win hosting rights to the World Cup. So what exactly is Radmann doing for Australia?

The answer to that question is that despite his disastrous tenure with Germany’s World Cup organisation, Radmann’s perceived value lies in the connections he built there and earlier in his career, particularly to FIFA Executive Committee member Franz Beckenbauer.  Could this have influenced Beckenbauer’s December 2009 statement that Australia’s World Cup bid was “perfect” and notably had “the support of some very, very experienced people who know exactly how it works and what it takes to be successful”? Australia’s 2022 World Cup bid page boasted:

Franz Beckenbauer has hailed Australia’s 2018-2022 FIFA World Cup bid as ‘perfect’, adding that the country can’t ask for better promotion than hosting the world’s biggest tournament.

Beckenbauer is a member of the FIFA Executive Committee, the 24-man panel who’ll decide the hosts for those respective tournaments in a year’s time and was heavily influential in the lead up to and during the 2006 World Cup in his home country.

He said Germany is still basking in the afterglow of 2006, which helped change the world’s perception of Germany, and said Australia would reap similarly massive benefits.

“The FIFA World Cup is the most seen sporting event in the world,’’ Beckenbauer said.

“Billions and billions of people are watching all the games and it’s the best promotion that your country could have.

“In terms of the bid itself, I think it’s a great bid, it’s perfect and also you have the support of some very, very experienced people who know exactly how it works and what it takes to be successful.’’

Those people are the likes of Hargitay, Radmann and Abold’s expensively recruited company, abold, who played a key role in South Africa’s 2010 World Cup bid as well as in Germany 2006. The employment of these figures becomes a virtuous or vicious circle depending on your perspective: with each bid’s success, and the role played by the same small group of elite marketing consultants in them, those marketing consultants’ connections grow and their employment becomes ever more desirable, as Abold himself explained in an interview with the Host City website:

Our clients award us contracts mainly based on the strong bidding experience we have gained over a period of almost 20 years. Besides FIFA bids, we have also prepared bids for the Olympic Games, European Athletics Championships, 59th UITP World Congress, ICCA Congress and others. In every business it is important to know your target group well. We are proud to have established long-standing relationships with our clients, not only during the bidding phase for an event but also in the implementation phases. This, by nature, results in close ties.

These crucial “close ties” bring us back to the same issue we began this series with when we looked at Australia’s suspect gift-giving practices to FIFA’s Executive Committee members and FIFA’s absurd and inadequate Code of Ethics. The rotten core of this subterranean process for selecting World Cup hosts lies in Zürich, Switzerland, at FIFA’s headquarters. It lies in the set-up of FIFA’s all-powerful Executive Committee, 24 men (and they are all men) so long and so deeply embedded in the political subterfuge and grubby finances of the organisation of the world’s game that it’s doubtful they even realise how corrupt they are perceived to be by so many. Secretive decision-making practices, a lack of public transparency and tenure on the Committee that can stretch to decades (with unlimited reelection of four-year terms) makes a mockey of FIFA’s claim to be democratic.

Here is how long each Ex-Com member has been on that body (with most having earlier relationships to FIFA stretching back years as well):

President
Sepp Blatter: 12 years

Senior Vice-President
Julio Grondono: 22 years

Vice-Presidents
Jack Warner: 27 years
Issa Hayatou: 20 years
Mong-Joon Chung: 16 years
Ángel María Villar Llona: 12 years
Michel Platini: 8 years
Reyanld Tamarii: 6 years
Geoff Thompson: 3 years

Members
Michel D’Hooge: 22 years
Ricardo Teixeira: 16 years
Mohamed Bin Hammam: 14 years
Senes Erzik: 14 years
Chuck Blazer: 14 years
Worawi Makudi: 13 years
Nicolas Leoz: 12 years
Junji Ogora: 8 years
Amos Adamu: 4 years
Marios Lefkaritis: 3 years
Jaxques Anouma: 3 years
Franz Beckenbauer: 3 years
Rafael Salguero: 3 years
Jerome Valcke: 3 years
Hano Aby Rida: 1 year
Vitaly Mutko: 1 year

As we can see, the tenure of some of the senior executive committee members, the most influential men in world soccer, is extremely long, with Jack Warner spending 27 years there cultivating and being cultivated surrounding decisions that impact how billions of dollars are spent year in, year out. And hence, the likes of Radmann and Hargitay, with their connections to senior members stretching back years, are recruited at high cost for Australia’s World Cup bid team. The Sidney Morning Herald explained how Jack Warner had been wooed:

As one of 24 on FIFA’s executive committee (Exco), Warner in December will help decide which nations will host the 2018 and 2022 Cups. As a contender for 2022, Australia is counting on Warner’s support in the later rounds of the FIFA ballot.

Assisting Australia to court Warner is Football Federation Australia’s highly paid lobbyist, Peter Hargitay, who helped arrange the Warner-Rudd meeting.

It is understood that Hargitay was also involved in arranging, at Warner’s request, the sponsorship by the FFA of a trip for the Trinidad and Tobago under-20 men’s football team to a training camp in Cyprus last year.

FIFA revealed it is investigating the trip.

A statement said: “FIFA can confirm that it is looking into this matter. For the time being, FIFA cannot disclose any other details or make any further comment.”

The trip would have cost the FFA – presumably using Australian taxpayer money – tens of thousands of dollars. The Warner family’s travel company, Simpaul, was involved in arranging part of that trip, however, the FFA said yesterday all its dealings with the Trinidad and Tobago soccer team were through a separate and unrelated travel company.

It is also believed Hargitay was involved in, or at least knew of, a trip to Australia offered by the FFA to Warner supporter and a South American FIFA Exco member, Rafael Salguero, and his wife in December, as well as other gifts given to Exco members by Australia.

The lid lifted on Australia’s World Cup bid has demonstrated to the world once again how shady this process is, and just how badly we need reform at the highest levels of FIFA to stop the game falling even more deeply into the pockets of the likes of Hargitay, Radmann and Warner.

Today, we will look at another of the revelations to have come out in Australia’s press that once again affirms the entire process of World Cup bidding is all about who you can buy to get the tournament.

Sadly, it means paying $11.37 million (AUS) to two of world soccer’s least pleasant leeches, Peter Hargitay and Fedor Radmann. As The Age reported:

Two controversial European lobbyists hired to help bring the soccer World Cup to Australia stand to receive up to $11.37 million in fees and bonuses – one-quarter of the taxpayer-funded bid – according to secret Football Federation Australia files.

The files include a spreadsheet that suggests the federal government was not told specific details about how taxpayers’ money was to be spent on the lobbyists and grants to overseas football bodies headed by powerful FIFA officials. [ . . ]

Mr Hargitay is being paid $1.35 million by the FFA and has a success fee of $2.54 million. Mr Radmann’s work for the Australian bid, which the FFA has attempted to keep confidential, will earn him up to $3.49 million via a German consulting firm. He is also entitled to a $3.99 million success fee. As part of a separate contract, the FFA is paying Mr Radmann’s business partner, Andreas Abold, an additional $3 million for World Cup “bid book production and bid advice”. It is unclear if Mr Abold will also receive some of Mr Radmann’s fees.

Ben Buckley, FFA Chief Executive Officer, defended these payments to consultants, claiming they were necessary hires for their expertise in a number of areas related to the bid:

Consultants

FFA has engaged a number of Australian and international consultants to assist in presenting its bid.

Each consultant was selected based on their expertise and experience in international football and major sporting events. The scope of areas covered by such consultants includes accommodation, bid book design and production, cost planning, economic analysis, engineering, environment, event planning and coordination, financial analysis, government relations, international advocacy, international relations, marketing, project management, security, stadium design and transport.

FFA has provided all information requested by the Government in respect of the engagement of consultants, including services provided and their fees.

The terms of FFA’s commercial arrangements with its staff and consultants are commercial in confidence and FFA does not make this information publicly available.

FFA requires its staff and consultants to abide by codes of conduct and ensure compliance with laws and regulations and relevant policies. The Government Funding Agreement also requires any personnel engaged to work on FFA’s Bid to comply with behaviours set out in a Government-approved code of conduct.

Sounds impressive: cost planning! financial analysis! economic analysis! Wow!

Utter tosh. Thank the lord for Andrew Jennings, because once again, we turn to FIFA’s nemesis investigative journalist for the real reasons why the services of Peter Hargitay and Fedor Radmann are worth millions of dollars to the FFA.

Let’s start with Hargitay, born in Hungary in 1951, fluent in four languages, and with a global track record of dubious doings that stretches back decades. As Andrew Jennings tells us:

In the 1980s Hargitay worked as a media-fixer in Switzerland.

When the Union Carbide company’s chemical factory in Bhopal, India, exploded in 1984, killing 16,000 people, maiming thousands more – and leaving a ghastly legacy of damaged babies – the company called on his special services.

Hargitay masterminded their battle to avoid paying fair compensation. He has boasted of his success on his websites. The people of Bhopal still wait for justice.

Hargitay moved on to work for Marc Rich, the fugitive from American justice, who based himself in Zug, Switzerland. Marc Rich was famous for being America’s biggest-ever tax dodger. He was named as one of America’s Ten Most Wanted.

But Marc Rich committed a greater crime. He made another fortune secretly breaking UN sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

He sold the white minority the oil they needed to lubricate their repressive domination of the majority of the population.

Peter Hargitay moved to Jamaica where he operated a shipping business – CEA Lines – around the Caribbean.

In 1995 Jamaican police discovered cocaine hidden on CEA boat the Pilar Del Caribe. Hargitay was sent for trial accused of trafficking – but later acquitted.

There are five more pages on this stuff, with Hargitay arrested by Interpol for fraud, indicted by the US government for cocaine trafficking, returning to Switzerland to do “military and government level surveillance” for his clients and setting up a consultancy network — European Consultancy Network (ECN) — where he delivered to clients “news items and alternative scoops that would divert, detract and destabilise imminent media interest.”

And that’s about when Sepp Blatter needed such services whilst mired in scandal, as he became a special adviser to FIFA’s boss from 2002 to 2007.

He was rewarded richly, with that connection helping him (and his son) land a role as an Executive Producer of the Goal! movie trilogy.

These connections made him extremely valuable, and the Football Association hired Hargitay and his company ECN to consult on its 2018 World Cup bid. But when Lord Triesman joined the FA as Chairman, he dispensed with Hargitay, for reasons that remain murky, though the publicity that surrounded Hargitay and revealed in the Sunday Herald in April 2008 probably played a part:

Last week the Sunday Herald asked the FA to explain Hargitay’s links with the Zurich based “intelligence gathering” agency ABI, which offers clients “covert operation assignments”, a “software expert with hacker-credentials” as well as “military and government- level surveillance” operations. On its website ABI boasts that one key operative is “a Cuban army colonel with a martial arts black belt.” Come to a private meeting and ABI will disclose, “the full extent of services – their implications and advantages”.

The decision by the FA to can Hargitay was risky in FIFA’s elite circles, irking CONCACAF boss Jack Warner, as he told the Mail in June 2008:

Jack Warner, who carries three out of the 24 FIFA votes on the World Cup venue and influences others, has questioned the FA’s wisdom in falling out with his football strategist friend Peter Hargitay. The FA tendered for 2018 consultants after Hargitay’s European Consultancy Networks had prepared the bid campaign policy. Warner said ominously: ‘It’s unfortunate. Peter could have been an asset in many ways. It was not a prudent thing to dispense with ECN. The timing is not good.’

Hargitay moved on to work for Mohamed Bin Hammam, the boss of the Asian Football Confederation, and in 2009 oversaw his election to FIFA’s Executive Committee.

Last October, when it was revealed Hargitay had been hired by the FFA to work on Australia’s World Cup bid, he denied this work was richly rewarding, rejecting the idea England had paid him seven figures and claiming Australia were paying under $134,000 for his services.

”We received a fee of £75,000 ($134,000) plus expenses for the first phase of our work; upon conclusion and delivery of the strategic plan, we received a further £25,000 fee. As for Australia, our contract is less than that.

“After we concluded our work for the England bid, we were approached by several countries, none of which we were interested to work for,” Hargitay added. “We put a proposal to the FFA, which was accepted and ECN and I were asked to join them as consultants.”

We now know that, according to the Age newspaper (and notably lacking a denial by the FFA), Hargitay is being paid $1.35 million for his services, with a bonus of $2.54 million if the bid succeeds.

For his trouble tracking Hargitay, Andrew Jennings recently received a threatening letter from notorious defender of public scourges, the law firm Schillings of London, once employed by corrupt Uzbeki billionaire Alisher Usmanov to threaten and try to close down this and other websites for revealing his past crimes.

Peter Hargitay, ladies and gentlemen, selected by the FFA for a multi-million dollar contract for his “expertise and experience in international football and major sporting events.”

Next time, we will take a look at the other big name consultant hired, Fedor Radmann, whose past is equally suspect and tied to the exploitation of the global game by FIFA and other commercial entities.

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.

An investigation published by Australia’s Age newspaper and its sister titles in the Fairfax media group alleges the country’s bid team bought jewelery worth more than A$50,000 ($42,670) for the wives of many of the 24 FIFA Ex-co members .

The bid team also stands accused of offering an all-expenses-paid trip to Guatemalan FIFA executive committee member Rafael Salguero and his wife to Australia to mark his birthday earlier this year.

FIFA’s rules of bid conduct prohibit more than token gifts being given by bid teams. Last year England’s bid team were plunged into controversy after giving out Mulberry handbags worth £235 ($354).

But it’s interesting to explore the defense by Ben Buckley, CEO of Football Federation Australia (FFA), in a letter to the Age published by the newspaper, as it shows that the FFA may well have followed FIFA’s rules to the letter of the law in terms of the gift-giving — bringing up the question of whether FIFA’s rules on gift-giving are actually adequate. Here’s his defense:

It is a widely accepted, common practice amongst governments, many businesses and sporting organisations to provide symbolic gifts to visiting international delegations. Gift giving as part of the FIFA World Cup bidding process is a permitted and common practice. FIFA has specific guidelines confirming this. FFA has at all times complied with these guidelines, including the FIFA Code of Ethics and other bidding regulations.

During the bidding process, gifts have included boomerangs, Drizabone jackets, Australian wines, scarves, beanies, RMWilliams belts and wallets. At the FIFA Congress in Sydney in May 2008, prior to the formal bidding process, gifts given by FFA included Paspaley cufflinks and pendants. In all cases, gifts given are specifically selected as symbolically representative of Australian culture and are consistent with FIFA’s regulations relating to gift giving.

So, then, thanks to Ben Buckley, we learn that FIFA has a Code of Ethics. Who knew?  In fact, the Code of Ethics was introduced in October 2004, after scandal finally forced FIFA to do…something rather toothless, as we’ll see.

FIFA’s Code of Ethics has a section on gift-giving that applies at all FIFA officials at all times:

This Code applies to all officials. Officials are all board members, committee members, referees and assistant referees, coaches, trainers and any other persons responsible for technical, medical and administrative matters in FIFA, a confederation, association, league or club.

Part 10 of the “Rules of Conduct” covers “Accepting and giving gifts and other benefits”:

1. Officials are not permitted to accept gifts and other benefits that exceed the average relative value of local cultural customs from any third parties. If in doubt, gifts shall be declined. Accepting gifts of cash in any amount or form is prohibited.

2. While performing their duties, officials may give gifts and other benefits in accordance with the average relative value of local cultural customs to third parties, provided no dishonest advantages are gained and there is no conflict of interest.

This Code of Ethics applies at all times to all officials of FIFA (such as a FIFA Executive Committee member) and its associations (such as the FFA) — essentially, these officials may only accept token gifts. Buckley, then, is arguing that the following as described by the Sydney Morning Herald was in line with this Code of Ethics:

Bought Paspaley pearl necklaces for the wives of many of the 24 FIFA executive committee members who in December will decide which countries will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Pearl cufflinks were also handed out, taking the total value of the gifts to an estimated $50,000.

That’s some expensive average relative value of local cultural custom, there. Surely that can’t be considered a token gift? Ah, but here’s the clever catch: these gifts were given to the wives of FIFA Executive Committee members, not the officials themselves: the Code says nothing about anyone accompanying the officials receiving gifts. And it’s very, very important to remember that these gifts were given to the wives before Australia had submitted its official bid, even though everyone knew they were about to do so. So even though the gifts had significant value, they are allowed under FIFA’s general Code of Ethics.

This is a crucial distinction because as Buckley also mentioned, there are further “other bidding regulations” that apply to gift-giving from FIFA Member Nations during the World Cup bid process — ie, once an official bid has been submitted to FIFA. These further Rules of Conduct state that

The Member Association and the Bid Committee shall refrain, and shall ensure that each entity or individual associated or affiliated with it shall refrain, from providing to FIFA or to any representative of FIFA, to any member of the FIFA Executive Committee, the FIFA Inspection Group, FIFA consultants, or any of their respective relatives, companions, guests or nominees

(i) any monetary gifts;

(ii) any kind of personal advantage that could give even the impression of exerting influence, or conflict of interest, either directly or indirectly, in connection with the Bidding Process, such as at the beginning of a collaboration, whether with private persons, a company or any authorities, except for occasional gits that are generally regarded as having symbolic or incidental value and that exclude any influence on a decision in relation to the Bidding Process; and

(iii) any benefit, opportunity, promise, renumeration or service to any of such individuals, in connection with the Bidding Process.

[emphasis added]

So, we can see that FIFA tightens up the regulations during the bidding process. It now includes in the section on gift-giving “any of their respective relatives, companions, guests or nominees” of the officials.

Again, those expensive pearl necklaces were apparently given to the wives of FIFA Executive Committee members before Australia submitted its bid. FIFA’s Code of Ethics, unlike FIFA’s further Rules of Conduct during the bidding process, does not mention “any of their respective relatives, companions, guests or nominees.”

This distinction, clearly, is ludicrous: Buckley might be right that the FFA followed the letter of the rules, but it just makes it clear that the rules are absurd. The “respective relatives, companions, guests or nominees” of FIFA officials should always be subject to the tighter Rules of Conduct regarding gift-giving, as it’s now very obvious how open to abuse they are.

This is the fourth in series of miscellaneous perspectives on the World Cup groups and nations (here’s

This is the second time around for the teams of Group D.  It is the only quartet in the tournament comprised of four teams who were also at the World Cup in 2006 (so long as we stretch a bit by allowing an independent Serbia to substitute for 2006’s ‘Serbia and Montenegro’).  While that may mean something about big game experience, for my miscellany series it means better writers than I have already done the hard work: Ghana, Serbia, Australia, and Germany were all covered in my sacred book, the 2006 Thinking Fans Guide to the World Cup.  So I thought I’d turn the introduction over to them, selecting excerpts from longer essays on each:

Here’s British author Geoff Dyer on Serbia (and Montenegro—as they were combined in 2006):

“I could be wrong, could have been unduly influenced by Rebecca West’s belief ‘that acceptance of tragedy…is the basis of Slav life,’ but it should not be assumed that all teams attending the World Cup actually want to win it.  We hear much about the will to win; the idea of choking is taken as a tightening up, a defeat brought about by wanting too badly to win.  But there is also a will to lose.  We English know all about this.  Chris Waddle succumbed to it in Italy ’90.  Something in his English heart—and in ours too—craved defeat, shame, the taste of ashes in the mouth.  The urge does not usually manifest itself so simply.  Ideally one wants to feel wronged, cheated, robbed, betrayed.  The Serbs will not win the World Cup but they might achieve their goal: to crash out as a result of some error of their own which is either compounded by or—even better—indistinguishable from a decision by referees or linesmen who have been duped by the cunning of the opposition who are themselves in cahoots with FIFA.  ‘Only part of us is sane,’ writes Rebecca West, ‘only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to live to our nineties and die in piece, in a house that we build, that shall shelter those who come after us.  The other half of us is nearly mad.  It prefers the disagreeable to the agreeable, loves pain and its darker night despair, and wants to die in a catastrophe that will set back life to its beginnings and leave nothing of our house save its blackened foundations.’

History plays a part in this.  No one in England can remember anything about football from before the 1966 World Cup.  But in Serbia, I imagine, people remember incidents and talking points from every game since the dawn of time.  This also occurs within the context of an individual match.  X fouls Y because Y fouled him because he was fouled by X…As I understand the Serbian mentality there are always prior offenses to be taken into account.  That’s why the Serbian writer Vesna Goldsworthy begins Chernobyl Strawberries, her memoir of growing up in Belgrade, with an epigraph from Wittgenstein: ‘It is difficult to find the beginning.  Or better; it is difficult to begin at the beginning, and not to try to go further back.”

Here’s British novelist Ben Rice writing about his wife’s home country, imagining what it must have been like to play in Australia’s world record 31-0 thrashing of American Samoa (back when the Socceroos had to play preliminary qualifiers in the Oceania region):

“You are killing the American Samoans.  By halftime you have bagged six goals, more than you’ve scored in an entire season for the Serie A side where you play your club football.  If you liked you could wheel on a gas Barbie, cook up some prawns, have a few beers, make love to a beautiful woman right here on the pitch, and probably score a few more.  But you get no pleasure from this game.  It is nice to be home, bloody oath it is, but despite the vast improvement to your international goal stats, you are miserable.  It’s a bloody farce.  The fans are already barracking for the opposition.  Some of them are leaving.  Your coach has fallen asleep on the sideline.  And one of these American Samoans, you can’t fail to notice, is young enough to be your kid.

Your mates back in Italy will just assume football in Australia has an entirely different scoring system.  You will never be taken seriously.  You consider suggesting to the referee that you play without a goalkeeper, that you play blindfolded, that you withdraw half your team from the field, or offer your opponents a twenty goal cushion to make more of a game of it, but you know this will not help; if anything it will only reinforce the amateurishness of the contest.  And then it hits you—the only decent way to make the organizers appreciate your plight is by creating a massive comedy scoreline, a scoreline that will hopefully transmit the message that soccer deserves a proper place in the sporting psyche of the nation.”

Here’s British writer Caryl Phillips on Ghana:

“In August 2005 I sat on a crowded British Airways jet that was flying from London to Accra.  Seated all around me were the players and coaches of the Black Stars—the Ghanaian national football team—who, the previous evening, had drawn 1-1 in a friendly match with Senegal that had been played in London at the ground of Brentford Football Club.  The players were polite, relatively quiet, and displayed good manners and behavior of a type that one would never expect from an equivalent group of English players.  An hour into the flight one player tapped me on the shoulder and politely asked if he might ‘borrow’ my iPod, while another player eyed my newspaper until I folded it in half and offered it to him.  It appeared that these young men did not have much in the way of material possessions; in fact, I had seen better kitted-out high school teams, and the mind boggled when one realized that by contrast with their own seemingly modest lifestyles, one of their teammates, Michael Essien, had just been transferred from Lyon to Chelsea for $40 million and was earning more than $75,000 per week.  In fact, he probably earned enough in one half-hour stretching session in the gym to equip all of his teammates with iPods.  Of course, Michael Essien was not on the flight.  He had remained behind in London, but as I somewhat self-consciously listened to my music I wondered just what kind of a cohesive team spirit could possibily be engendered in a squad of players where First and Third World values clashed so crudely.

Three months later, Ghana qualified for its first-ever World Cup appearance…”

Here’s Der Spiegel journalist Alexander Osang, who grew up in East Germany before reunification, on Germany:

“With reunification there was an opportunity for change—no more GDR and no more GDR national team—but I couldn’t let go of the past.

I watched the 1990 World Cup semifinal, between Germany and England, on a big screen in the Berlin Lustgarten, with thousands of people.  England’s Paul Gascoigne cried, and I cried too when Germany won.  I stood among rejoicing German fans, very alone.  I Couldn’t watch the final against Argentina.  I simply couldn’t bear it.  I drove my seventeen-year-old Polski Fiat, a gift from my brother-in-law before he fled to the West, to a residential area in Berlin and parked there for ninety minutes.  I sat in the stillness of the city and waited.  When I heard the screams and the fireworks, I knew that it was over.  Germany had won and I had lost again.  Later I learned that the game had been decided by a penalty kick, taken by Andreas Brehme, a blond defender; a typical German goal.  After winning the championship, Franz Beckenbauer, who’d coached the team, predicted that a reunified soccer-Germany would be undefeated for years.

In 1999 I moved to New York to leave it all behind.  I didn’t have a soccer team anymore—why not live in a country that didn’t care about soccer?  Things went well.  I only encountered the game in the tiny tables at the back of the New York Times sports section.  Or sometimes, watching my son play in Prospect Park, when another father made a friendly reference to the great German soccer tradition, and I’d nod, smiling.  Some things you can’t explain.”

Group D: The Group of _______________

The idea that in soccer there are ‘some things you can’t explain’ is both disturbing and comforting to me: I had a tough time tracking down clever non-soccer related statistics for Group D.  Beyond learning a few odd facts (did you know Serbia is the country with the most chess grandmasters per capita in the World Cup?), I mostly learned that these are four extremely disparate countries.  They do, however, share pretty good soccer teams.

Though I’m with those describing Group G (Brazil, North Korea, Cote d’Ivoire, and Portugal) as the tournament’s actual ‘Group of Death,” Group D could also make a good statistical argument for itself.  Group D has the highest average FIFA ranking of any quartet in the World Cup, and the best average betting odds on winning the whole thing.  That is mostly because there is no true patsy in this group; each takes its sporting cultures seriously.  In fact, this group would also have the highest average FIFA ranking of any in the tournament if it were a Women’s World Cup—the Germans and the Australians are even better on the women’s side as on the men’s, and the Ghanaians are among the best women’s teams in Africa.

But still, what strikes me as most notable about this group is where I started: it’s the only group where each team was also there in 2006.  And aside from Germany, if we stretch the facts a little it is almost the case that 2010 is the second time around for each of these teams: Australia did manage to have a mostly amateur team qualify in 1974 but this is only their second appearance since then, and Serbia was represented regularly in various Yugoslav incarnations, but still…I’m going with the Group of Teutons and Second Chances.

Who would advance if there were any justice in the world?

In calculating who would advance with my secret formula of soccer history and global politics, for Group D I’m hopelessly biased in regard to soccer history.  As a US fan I still harbor anger towards the Germans for the cheating hand of Torsten Frings that kept the Americans from the semi-finals.  I’m also somewhat bitter about Ghana being awarded a controversial and critical penalty in 2006 due to the simple fact that Oguchi Onyewu is a much larger man than Razak Pimpong.  But on that one I’d rather blame the referee.  Let’s see, who was that again?  Oh, right—Markus Merk.  German!  With that, and a desire to prove that it is not only English fans tormented by the Deutscher Fußball-Bund, in my mind Germany is out.

Ghana, on the other hand, gets my sympathies.  Ghana was the first independent African country, it is often held up as a model of relative democratic stability on the continent, and it is the place that gave us Freddy Adu.  Ghana also happens to be the poorest country (by GDP per capita) in the tournament, making them the truest underdog.  I’ve also always liked the Ghanaian flair for team names: Accra Hearts of Oak is one of my all-time favorites for club teams, and I find the story behind the ‘Black Stars’ fascinating (Ghana’s independence leader Kwame Nkrumah named the team after the ‘Black Star’ shipping line imagined by Marcus Garvey to connect the African Diaspora).  So Ghana is in.

In regard to soccer justice, I can’t say much between Australia and Serbia.  It is a bit disappointing that Neven Subotić played for the US at the U-17 and U-20 levels (and even played some at the University of South Florida) before switching to Serbia, but at least he was born in the former Yugoslavia—he’s traitorousness is nowhere near that of Giuseppe Rossi.  I also have some bad memories of travelling through Australia in my younger days and getting endlessly hassled for being in a short-lived bohemian phase.  But overall I feel some kinship with the Aussie soccer fans in that the momentum of the game in that country, gradually overcoming hints of xenophobia and the pull of another idiosyncratic football code, feels akin to what’s happening in the US.  I suspect, on the other hand, that soccer is robust enough in Serbia to survive—and if Geoff Dwyer is right, maybe even thrive—with a first round exit.

So from my completely subjective standpoint, if there were any justice in the world Ghana and Australia would advance from Group D.  But keep in mind, there is rarely any justice in the world.

Group D – Some Stats

Big Story

It’s a good idea for fans of young leagues in countries where soccer is not the number one sport to keep an eye on each other’s progress and ideas. Perhaps more than aping long-established leagues where soccer is a sunk in part of a country’s culture, those like myself who want Major League Soccer to grow could do worse than look at the developments in Australia’s A-League, for example: at both its successes and its failures.

The A-League launched in 2005 with a rule MLS would soon introduce under a different name as the Designated Player rule: in Australia, each club was allowed to sign one “Marquee Player” outside the salary cap.

Now, like MLS this year, the A-League is expanding the number of Marquee Players a club is allowed, though with an interesting twist: the second Marquee Player slot for each team is designated for an Australian player. Football Federation Australia CEO Ben Buckley said:

“There is a wealth of Australian talent overseas with over 140 players currently playing in 15 of the top leagues in world football. Australian players are competing at a high level in Europe, Asia and America and what we have created is a viable option for these players to return to the Hyundai A-League and compete in what is becoming a very strong and competitive league.”

It would allow a club like Sydney FC to keep hold of Marquee Player Robbie Fowler while also signing a homegrown talent like Nicky Carle back from Britain, as has been the hot rumour for some time.

It’s also intended to increase the signing of high-profile foreigners as Marquee players, with some Australians currently designated as such moving to the local Marquee spot.

Reaction has been a little mixed, as the Sydney Morning Herald reports:

However, not all clubs will be thrilled about the new changes, given that several are struggling to stay afloat and cope with the rising financial pressures of competing in the competition.

The FFA will argue that the changes will create a surge of new interest, particularly if clubs are able to sign a player who enjoyed a prominent role at the World Cup.

The news comes as a timely shot in the arm for the A-League after a season of waning attendances – a period FFA chairman Frank Lowy described last year as a ”plateau” after four consecutive years of growth. Subsequent news of trouble at Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury has shown how tough some clubs are finding the marketplace.

Rules on “guest players” have also been clarified, another change MLS might consider looking at: clubs can now sign a guest player for up to 10 matches, and significantly, these players are now eligible to play in the A-League finals, an issue that reportedly stopped Luis Figo signing on with the league last year.

Are these rules worth consideration for MLS to both assist clubs in retaining top domestic talent, whilst also allowing short term infusions of foreign buzz into the league? (Discuss, students!)

Quick Hits

• Liverpool fans wonder if their plans were taken into consideration this week with UEFA’s decisions on games going ahead in the Europa League:  “We (fans) are always the forgotten people in this but it’s nothing new,” said Garreth Cummins, a Liverpool fan and international officer at the Football Supporters Federation.  “I can’t remember a single time when UEFA have made a decision and thought about the fans or at least overtly made some consideration to them,” he told Reuters.
• Portsmouth might be riding high on the field to the FA Cup Final, but off the field, Soccernet says their financial situation is (somehow) even worse than feared, with the club in debt to the tune of “£119 million owed to various creditors – including astonishing amounts to agents.”

The Sweeper appears daily. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Australia’s A-League’s newest expansion team now has a name and a logo: Melbourne Heart FC. The name was the suggestion of a fan in a name-the-team contest.

The team will play at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, the brilliantly named venue we featured here recently.

The Heart already face a challenge from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation of Melbourne, who are claiming the name and logo infringes their trademark rights.

Personally, I think the logo strikes just the right note: the angular cut of the heart and the M inside gives it the feel of a traditional shield, toughening up the identity a touch whilst still being a bold choice. The red and white colours match the flag of Melbourne.

I am, though, no graphic design expert, nor an authority on logos and team identity: so what do you think of the Melbourne Heart and their new logo?

A bullying, selfish FIFA Confederation President pursuing his own agenda to the detriment of the development of the beautiful game?  No, not Jack Warner, but AFC boss Mohamed Bin Hammam.

That, at least, is the perspective of much of New Zealand’s soccer media this week, following the AFC’s ultimatum to New Zealand’s Wellington Phoenix, who play in Australia’s A-League: become a lot more Australian, or else.

The AFC has said that if Wellington don’t severely limit the number of non-Australian players in their team, the A-League will lose its two AFC Champions League spots from 2012 on (after the expiration of the A-League’s current participation deal with the AFC). This would classify players from New Zealand as foreigners on a team based in New Zealand.

The following demands were reportedly sent by the AFC to Football Federation Australia (FFA):

• Wellington Phoenix FC should be officially registered as a commercial entity in Australia under local law.
• To comply with the provisions of the Regulations, the number of foreign players (non-Australian) in Wellington Phoenix FC should be the same as in other clubs participating in the A-League. In case Wellington Phoenix qualifiy for the ACL, the 3+1 system should be implemented by the club according to the ACL Regulations.
• Otherwise, Wellington Phoenix FC should belong to the second division of the A-League, which should be newly created by the FFA.

The 3+1 rule was instituted by the AFC earlier this year, limiting teams in the AFC Champions League to a maximum of four foreign players in a game, with at least one player from an AFC member association, and the AFC are pushing its leagues to adopt it domestically. The ACL regulations mentioned limit A-League teams to a maximum of five foreign players, but for Wellington, players from New Zealand (pretty logically) are currently classified as domestic.

In a post typical of the reaction, Michael Brown of the New Zealand Herald says Bin Hammam is “bullying” Phoenix.

Despite the uproar and outcry, it’s hard not to see that the AFC have a point. After all, Wellington play in Australia’s A-League, which is a little incongruous not only because Wellington isn’t in Australia, but because New Zealand and Australia aren’t even in the same FIFA Confederation, following the latter’s move from Oceania to the AFC in 2005.

But the AFC have handled the dispute abysmally, with the news report from the Confederation on the issue removed from their website a day after publication, with no explanation provided.

A severe limitation on the number of Kiwis on Wellington, or their departure from the A-League, would be a serious blow to the development of the sport in New Zealand. Ricki Herbert is the manager of both the Wellington Phoenix and the New Zealand national team, with many core members of the team playing for him at both club and country. Perhaps a little generously, the Sydney Morning Herald calls Wellington the best-run club in the A-League:

No Phoenix, no World Cup qualification. This is the pathway that was missing in 1981, the pathway that could take football across the Tasman to places it could only have dreamt of before property developer Terry Serepisos had his famous epiphany in a barber’s chair in early 2007 and bought a licence no one else wanted.

Serepisos is the best owner in the A-League, but now his $10 million investment is under threat. The A-League operates under the umbrella of the Asian Football Confederation, and AFC boss Mohamed Bin Hammam has never liked having a team from another confederation in his midst. For the past 18 months, he’s been white-anting the Phoenix, and now he’s finally made his move. Sooner or later, this had to come to a head.

The paper also points out that the competing World Cup bids of Australia and Qatar for 2022 could be at play here, in terms of the considerable pressure on the Australian federation to make nice with the AFC. Australia will need the support of their confederation for their bid; and many point out that a competing World Cup bid is, coincidentally or not, from Bin Hammam’s Qatar.  But the fact remains that there is a legitimate issue to resolve with Wellington the only club in the world to play in the top flight of a confederation their own country is not part of.

The FFA and Wellington ought to be able to find a work-around for this, but it may require the involvement of FIFA to solve a dispute between confederations, meaning the politics will only get an awful lot messier.

Big Story

Last 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 Rules Football attempting to stick a knife into the bid over the use of the country’s major multi-purpose stadia by complaining about potential scheduling interruptions and pushing for compensation.

Both the sport’s governing bodies clearly see the rise of soccer as a threat to their riches, and were attempting to derail the bid: particularly the Aussie Rules governing body, who have less to gain from new World Cup stadia development (rectangular pitches don’t do much for them).

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Michael Cockerill makes the point that this show of concern by soccer’s main rival codes might only entice FIFA to build on its substantial investment in the South Pacific region in recent decades by finally fulfilling its goal to spread its main tournament globally by bringing it to Australia for the first time. The complaints from rival codes might only encourage FIFA to believe there is a real opportunity to make soccer the #1 sport in Australia (even if this remains far-fetched in reality; but FIFA’s Executive Committee rarely ventures there).

No coincidence, then, that in the past 20 years FIFA has taken the cup to its most important frontiers. To the United States, to Japan and South Korea, and now to South Africa. Vibrant professional leagues have evolved in all those countries. The seeds have been sown.

Australia’s argument – espoused at every opportunity by Lowy – is that football in another key frontier, Australia, needs the same support to get the same rewards. It’s an argument which has steadily been gaining traction, and last week’s charm offensive leading into the draw in Cape Town was a spectacular triumph for the FFA chairman. FIFA is starting to listen, and now – thanks to the posturing of rival codes – it’s listening more than ever. Threatening the World Cup bid equals threatening FIFA, and FIFA doesn’t take kindly to being threatened. . .

All the whingeing and moaning is going to do is irritate some powerful people – making it even less likely they’ll get any compensation, and more likely Australia will get the World Cup. What should be a win-win for everyone might instead end up with a few sore losers. Call that a knife? This is a knife.

From the perspective of rival bids, this is also a knife ever more clearly on the table. Australia is certainly the most glamorous potential choice for FIFA to reach one of its final frontiers.

Worldwide News

• Finally there is a good piece on the abuse of Mario Balotelli, by Tom Kington in the Guardian: noting that he is receiving special and unwelcome attention as an emblem of an Italian society under transformation due to immigration patterns, Kington also notes a wider culture of support  is emerging: “If Balotelli is indeed picked by Italian national coach Marcello Lippi to play in the World Cup next summer, the selection may signal a new era for black Italians. And as more and more of their white compatriots realise that the country’s ethnic make-up is changing, support is at least beginning to emerge across the political spectrum.”
• It’s probably a good sign for women’s football in England that the number of applications to fill the FA’s new Women’s Super League is about double the number of spots available, 8, though it also raises the tricky question of how the FA decides who gets in. Sunderland’s manager Mick Mulhern is particularly concerned the FA may choose northeast rivals Newcastle over his own, recently successful team: “The FA surely can’t choose a team from a lower division against a side that has achieved what we have. If the eight clubs had been decided a year ago it might have been a toss-up for us to be one of them but, if we don’t get in now, there’s something badly wrong. And if Newcastle get in and we don’t, it will make a mockery of this new league – and I would walk away from the game.”
• We don’t usually link to videos of fans attacking players, but there is at least something innovative about the use of the carrot as Giorgos Karagounis of Panathinaikos is attacked by carrots by Iraklis fans.
• Also, a must-read from last week we missed on linking: Sport Is A TV Show looks at Stephen Ireland and the Irish media in an outstanding two-part series on “Egoman”.
• Finally, on a local note, Eric Wynalda is being linked with the vacant Chicago Fire head coaching job. Credit to the first writer to cover this and not use a “fireworks” metaphor.

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.