Australia's bid for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup

[hasbeen]

Disappoint 7 million ... where the f*** do they have 7 million supporters?

 

[BrisRecky]

GOT THIS OFF THE "ROAR' NEWSLETTER THIS MORNING


AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou has warned that the league will not take a back step to soccer if Australia hosts the World Cup.

In a speech at Thursday nights official season launch, Demetriou has made it clear that the AFL will not let soccer dictate terms if the bid to host the cup is successful.

Earlier this week, Demetriou told a meeting with Australias other football codes and the federal government that Etihad Stadium was off limits for the World Cup bid.

Over the coming years well also have to confront a changing sporting landscape in Australia, we have to be ready for the possibility of the World Cup, he said.

The AFL has always said we are happy to accommodate major sporting events, we have a track record to prove it.

But we do not and will not accept second place for Australian football.

We welcome other sports and major events, but we wont allow seven million fans to be deprived of Australias indigenous game, nor put at risk the jobs of so many associated with our game.

Demetriou also said the league was not obsessed with how much money it will earn from the upcoming television rights agreement, but was more concerned with what it can do with the expected financial bonanza.

The league will probably earn at least $1 billion from the next five-year agreement, which will start in 2012.

This new agreement, when its finalised, will underpin the future of the competition and be invested back into the game and the generations to come, Demetriou said.

This is a critical point that sometimes gets overlooked by those fascinated by dollar signs.

As a community organisation, the AFL is not driven by the money generated by broadcast rights.

What drives us is the impact this revenue can have when re-invested in our clubs, supporters, facilities,volunteers and better career paths and opportunities to attract the best athletes.

On Wednesday, Demetriou raised the possibility of a top-nine finals format once the league expands to an 18-team competition.

The top eight currently make the finals, but the league is conducting a wide-ranging review of the competition ahead of the entry of Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney by 2012.

When we have 18 teams, are we going to have 22 rounds? Are we going to have 23 or 24?, Demetriou told Channel Ten.

What will the bye look like next year? Do we have a final eight or final nine? Are the finals four weeks or five weeks? We dont know.

We would be remiss if we were not looking at all options.

We have a top eight with 16 teams and thats 50 per cent of the teams 18 teams, a top nine is 50 per cent of the teams, thats one way of looking at it.

Demetriou also defended his hefty $1.8 million salary, which the AFL revealed on Tuesday.

It has a bonus component where I have to achieve certain requirements if I dont I dont earn that, he said.

I think thats fair, ultimately Im judged by the remuneration committee and I cant ask for a fairer process than that. 

 

[Bex]

Big fish, small pond. If the bid gets up, Demetriou will change his tune one way or another.

 

[serious14]

A final nine??

What a knob.

 

[BrisRecky]

this demetriou bloke is incredibly suspicious and paranoid, considering the amount of revenue the clubs down there draw...I mean whats a friggin month or so outta the schedule....if he had any f**kin brains he'd give a free aussie rules game away with the WC tickets purchased by visitors from o/s.....of course we could just ditch Victoria altogether as part of the bid process

 

[midfielder]

The AFL are a clever group and are very well connected to governments ... read what you want into this but it does show the power and influence the AFL has south of the boarder...

http://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/cats-are-gearing-up-to-take-on-the-world-20100319-qmc4.html

Cats are gearing up to take on the World
DAN SILKSTONE
March 20, 2010
THE anointing of Geelong's Skilled Stadium as saviour of Australia's World Cup bid is near complete, with paperwork to be completed within days that will make Victoria's second city a key part of Australia's bid.

The Geelong facility - which would leave a post-World Cup legacy for Australian rules, but not for soccer, has effectively filled the final place in the Football Federation Australia bid book, to be submitted in May.

With bid organisers needing to submit a list of 12 FIFA-compliant stadiums, the list now contains three Queensland grounds and four in New South Wales but only two in Victoria and a single Melbourne facility - the MCG.

Initially disregarded by the FFA, Geelong has surged into the reckoning after AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou vowed to deny the bid access to Etihad Stadium, where the AFL has a contract.

Geelong first expressed interest around 18 months ago when Cats chief executive Brian Cook contacted the FFA's Ben Buckley and offered Skilled Stadium as a playing or training venue. The response was friendly but blunt enough: ''Thanks but no thanks.''

That all changed late last year when Demetriou said that World Cup bid organisers would not get access to Etihad Stadium as a venue and complained that the AFL had not been properly consulted about disruption caused by a World Cup in Australia.

He suggested to the Cats that there might be an opening that could secure World Cup soccer for Victoria, a FIFA compliant bid for the FFA and a shiny new stadium for Australian football and Geelong.

Cook and his team took up their argument again and this time people were listening. Including, somewhat reluctantly, the FFA.

''It would be just an unbelievable sporting and cultural event for Geelong,'' Cook told The Age. ''People underestimate the enormity of this event, given its television viewership of 36 billion. The economic activity it will bring and the legacy it will bring will mean, in my opinion, it will be the biggest thing that has ever happened in Geelong.''

The football club is in the final stages of signing off on a stadium agreement that will be returned to the FFA next week, agreeing to turn over signage, catering and all other functions of the stadium for the lead-in and duration of the World Cup.

Stage two of the Skilled Stadium redevelopment, already underway, will take capacity to 30,000. Geelong is already arguing for a phase three, which would make the stadium a 35,000 seater by adding a new stand at the ground's northern end.

The World Cup plan would be phase four. At a cost of around $250 million, it would be significantly cheaper than other alternatives to Etihad Stadium. Expanding the rectangular Stadium on Swan Street - now dubbed AAMI Park - would cost $100 million more than improving the Geelong venue, while the ''E-Gate'' boutique stadium proposed for the Docklands would come with double the price tag.

The Victorian Government has long pushed for Geelong to play a World Cup role but funding for the project - expected to be a mix of state and federal government money - would still have to be secured in the event that Australia wins hosting rights for 2018 or 2022.

The Docklands venue remains officially on the list but the chances of it forming part of Australia's bid have dramatically receded after the FFA appeared to give ground during a meeting last week with Demetriou, as well as representatives from rugby union and rugby league.

The FFA faces an awkward choice. Include Etihad in a list of 13 stadiums submitted as part of the bid book to be delivered in May, even though Demetriou has vowed to deny access to the stadium. Or cut the list to 12. Either way, Skilled Stadium will be part of the bid.

Geoff Dixon - the former Qantas chief handpicked by the government to find a way through the stadium morass - appears to have been persuaded by the detailed modelling work carried out by the AFL, which shows the importance to that competition of maintaining control of Etihad Stadium.

While many in the FFA have grown increasingly realistic about the possibility that Etihad should be dropped, chairman Frank Lowy is believed to still be keen for the stadium to be part of the bid.

The Geelong Football Club, which manages Skilled Stadium, believes the stage-four redevelopment is not necessary for its needs but would be beneficial to the city, allowing not just World Cup football but other big-time events, including Twenty20 cricket, to eventually be staged at the ground. Construction would take place over three football seasons but would not require games or training to be moved.

''Post-World Cup the benefits will be immense for both the footy club and for the city,'' Cook said.

The rectangularisation plan - drawn up by Populous architects - would create a capacity of 44,000 by bringing in the stands on all four sides to cover the turf. Afterwards, the stadium would revert to a 37,000-seat oval.

The AFL is determined to ensure that its position on Etihad is seen as a genuine need for the stadium rather than a bargaining ploy to wring more compensation out of bid organisers or the federal government.

That is the message that was carried into last week's meeting and the feeling is - finally - that it connected. At that meeting, held in Canberra, the FFA pledged to take seriously the issue of compensating other codes, though no mechanism has been agreed on and the AFL is yet to produce an ambit claim valuing the extent of disruption to its competition.

Insiders, though, put that amount at many millions of dollars. Additional to that are the demands of the NRL and ARU.

But while the FFA is open to discussing compensation, The Age understands the bid team views the Geelong stadium legacy as a windfall for Australian rules that should be considered part of the AFL's appeasement.

While construction won't stop AFL action at the stadium, if Australia wins World Cup hosting rights, the stadium would be unavailable to the Cats for an entire season. Matches would be played at Etihad Stadium while training would be relocated - permanently - to a new, purpose-built facility the club is negotiating to create as part of a planned housing development at Armstrong Creek. Those plans involve a plush new facility featuring two playing ovals, an indoor basketball court and gymnasium. The training centre would cost more than $10 million but the Cats are hopeful the cost will be shared by the developer behind the proposed new suburb, which is expected to be home to more than 50,000 people.

It would be a deal, similar to Hawthorn's at Waverley with developer Mirvac, that would gift the football club freehold title on the land, leaving the Cats to raise the funds to build a 20-acre facility modelled on the best training centres of the English Premier League. The plan has been endorsed by the board and negotiations are continuing with a developer

 

[Forum Phoenix]

Mmm, they clearly know what they want and are holding the bid over a bit of a barrel as Etihad is a great venue.

 

[midfielder]

Roy masters article... if we win the WC bid a new stadium at Blacktown and will be the home of the Rovers...

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/football/how-the-west-would-win--cup-means-new-stadium-20100321-qo4i.html

How the west would win - Cup means new stadium
ROY MASTERS
March 22, 2010
SYDNEY will have a 45,000-seat rectangular stadium at Blacktown, providing Australia wins the bid to host football's World Cup, delivering a serious rebuff to the AFL's expansion plans in the west of the city.

The new ground will be built in Blacktown's green Olympic precinct, next to the baseball and softball diamonds used during the 2000 Sydney Games and close to the AFL's western Sydney training ground, built to accommodate 10,000 spectators.

The AFL has been lobbying Football Federation Australia and the NSW and federal governments to support a redevelopment of Sydney Showground at Sydney Olympic Park as a World Cup venue and its later conversion to an AFL ground, which would be home to the Team GWS AFL club and new FFA team, Sydney Rovers, both set to enter their national competitions in 2012.

Instead, Blacktown will be one of the 12 stadiums listed in FFA's bid book submitted to FIFA on May 14. An FFA spokesman said: ''FFA's preferred option is a new stadium at Blacktown, rather than a redevelopment at Homebush. Blacktown, not Homebush, will be listed as one of Australia's 12 stadiums.''

The AFL has therefore suffered a double rebuff, being denied a home ground for its western Sydney club courtesy of the taxpayer and forced to train in the shadows of a jewel built for rugby league, rugby union and football on open-space greenland.

The Blacktown stadium would be scaled back to accommodate 30,000-35,000 after the World Cup. While the Blacktown stadium is contingent on Australia winning the bid to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, there is growing confidence Australia is favourite for the 2022 tournament. The two main rivals, the US and Qatar, have problems.

The US hosted the 1994 World Cup, which failed to ignite a boom in the sport in the world's richest country. Furthermore, US visa restrictions in a post-September 11 world would make it extremely difficult for some of the family of the world's most popular game to gain accreditation.

In Qatar it can be as hot as 51 degrees in July, and it would be forced to build 12 air-conditioned stadiums and training facilities.

Australia is perceived as a ''developing region'' of the world game, and FIFA has a record of awarding World Cups to countries nascent economically, or in playing numbers. South Africa will host this year's World Cup and Brazil the 2014 tournament, and Japan and South Korea staged the 2002 event. Many FFA officials privately concede Australia has lost the 2018 race to England, the nation that invented the game.

However, should Australia win the 2022 show, it is an opportunity for Sydney to wrest the title of ''sporting capital of Australia'' from Melbourne, the city that has awarded itself the status of sporting capital of the known universe.

Sydney would have three World Cup venues - ANZ Stadium at Homebush Bay, the Sydney Football Stadium and the Blacktown site - compared with Melbourne's sole site, the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

The AFL chief executive, Andrew Demetriou, has barred FIFA use of Etihad Stadium, a 52,000-seat, roofed facility in Melbourne's Docklands. The AFL has a 25-year lease on the stadium, owning it in 2022, and it insists on playing there during the June-July World Cup period.

While the FFA refuses to publicly criticise the AFL for its intransigence over Etihad, it admits it will disadvantage Victorians who will see only four or five World Cup games at the MCG and low-interest pool games in Geelong, which would be redeveloped if the bid was successful. The 85,000-seat ANZ stadium in Sydney would almost certainly be chosen for the biggest show on earth, the FIFA World Cup final.

The NRL has been more co-operative than the AFL in accommodating the FFA's wishes, although a stadium at Blacktown is not its preferred site in the compensation packages the major codes expect for disruptions to their seasons.

A new stadium in the south-western growth corridor past Fairfield would have better suited rugby league development plans.

 

[Jesus]

Rugby league should have been behind the bid from the start, and used it as a way to co tennant new rectangular stadiums in adelaide and perth specifically, giving them a decent ground for expansion, as well as newy/townsville, expansion of suncorp, roof for homebush, expanding the bubbledome, new stadium in blacktown.

The NRL, if they were smart, would be the big winners from a world cup in terms of infrastructure, as well as football, instead it is being gifted to afl despite their constant complaining

 

[curious]

I'll be dead and buried before the nrl attempt adelaide and perth again, with new stadiums or old.

 

[Jesus]

I'll be dead and buried before the nrl attempt adelaide and perth again, with new stadiums or old.

They will go there when they have the cash to keep them going, just like afl in syd/bris/gc. The nrl will have that cash from the next broadcast agreement

 

[midfielder]

BB ..... not sure if FIFA would be overly impressed.. but sometimes I just wish you would come out fighting, rather than all this softly softly approach...

Also gotta agree with some of the earlier posters about RL & RU's lack of support for the bid when you consider they could gain a lot and have let the AFL slip into WA & SA without any attempt to get a stadium that would suit all three codes..

But a new spin on the code wars...from BB...

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/australia/news/981372/FFA-spins-code-war

FFA spins code war

25 March 2010-SBS

Matthew Hall

World Cup will benefit rival codes ... says FFA chief Ben Buckley (Getty)
Australias bid for the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cup will leave other sports enriched, according to a press release from Football Federation Australia released to international media.
In response to a growing perception that the battle between the Australian Football League - led by outspoken AFL boss Andrew Demetriou - and FFA over access to stadia may damage the bid, FFA has smartly attempted to spin the conflict into an asset.

FFA claims a World Cup in Australia will provide a tangible benefit to non-football fans, according to the press release, something that is a key component of its bid.

A key theme will be the multi-use of the stadia being proposed, the statement read.

FFA will not be presenting FIFA, nor the Australian public, with ill conceived and limited stadia. Our sporting history means that we have a number of first rate stadiums that are primarily used by other sports.

Demetriou has made no secret of his antipathy of the potential effect of a World Cup in Australia on the AFL while the National Rugby League has joined in seeking unspecified compensation for its own sport should Australia win the rights to host the tournament.

"We do not - and will not - accept second place for Australian [rules] football, Demetriou said at the recent launch of the new AFL season.

"We welcome other sports and major events, but we wont allow seven million fans to be deprived of Australia's indigenous game, nor put at risk the jobs of so many associated with our game."

But FFA claimed rival sports are united in bringing a World Cup to Australia and that each will benefit from a winning Australian bid.

Australian sport is rallying together to support our bid for the World Cup and the tournament will leave other sports enriched through improvements, the press release claimed.

Australian Rules Football, Rugby League, Rugby Union and Cricket will all benefit from the improvements that will be undertaken as part of the World Cup being held in Australia.

FFA chief executive Ben Buckley was quoted in the press release, claiming: Ours is a no-worries bid in so far as the people of Australia will deliver an event fitting of the occasion, but it also offers the opportunity to bring a lasting legacy to football and non-football fans alike.

 

[pjennings]

Interesting points brought up on the Victory forum about the AFL's stance towards the bid being actually counterproductive to their long-term aims. The sentiment is that the MCG will get the opening game and Homebushg the final with Melbourne maybe hosting only 4 games, and Geelong no guarantee to be in the final list of stadiums. The points were:-

1. By protecting 'Melbourne' they are exposing their weakest market Western Sydney to more football
2. NRL will gain modifications to their grounds which are closer to football requirements in any case
3. Whilst the final goes to Sydney, there will be a loooonnnnng build up to the opening game in Melbourne.

http://melbournevictory.net/forum/showthread.php?t=46203&page=138

 

[FFC Mariner]

The people who run tardball are blinded by their own beliefs. Just because you are the dominant sport in 1 city, does not mean you are relevant in places like W Syd or the rest of the world.

Y'know, that big place that has never heard of their stupid game (reward people for missing FFS)

A hard and horrible dose of reality might come their way if we ever land the WC

 

[pjennings]

I found Uncle Frank's comments about not needing the AFL interesting.

I can see the original bid book going in with upgrades to

MCG
Newcastle
Homebush
SFS
Brisbane
Townsville

and flatpacks in

Adelaide
OASIS or Blacktown  
Canberra
Perth

Total cost around $1.5Billion

Then other proposed stadiums may be built with pressure on the relative state governments if they want a larger slice of the pie. Multiuse stadiums in Adelaide, Perth and the Carrara to be largely funded by the state governments as they ultimately cater more for AFL could be used by those states if they want to garner more games.

 

[bulldogmariner]

Think you left the Gold Coast out there. The stadium at Robina could easily be upgrade to 40000+ as it is currently 30000.
I think Gold Coast would be more likely to be used than Townsville considering how easy it is to get to.

 

[pjennings]

You can't justify Robina. Nobody goes there. If they want something on the Gold Coast then the QLD governnment can pay for further upgrades at Carrara to make it muti-use rather than an oval - which is already getting some upgrades for the Commonwealth Games in 2018.

Townsville is the being touted as the defacto capital of North Queensland and is close to the Barrier Reef for the tourists. Dairy Farmers also is better utilised than Robina with both the Cowboys and Fury there.

 

[bulldogmariner]

Facilities at Robina are world class. They will get more tourists to the Gold Coast than Townsville. It is the holiday strip. Robina has United and Titans playing out of there. Transport is better on Gold Coast as well. I would think they would use all 3 but the 2 south east QLD stadiums are better than Townsville.

 

[pjennings]

Fair enough - though I sill think they will use Townsville as well.

 

[Jaza_SFC]

You can't justify Robina. Nobody goes there. If they want something on the Gold Coast then the QLD governnment can pay for further upgrades at Carrara to make it muti-use rather than an oval - which is already getting some upgrades for the Commonwealth Games in 2018.

Carrara is harder to get ot than Robina. Robina may be a little further out of the way (south), but has none of the infrastructure around it that Robina has. Absolutely no chance of Carrara being used.