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By Paul Malone
June 16, 2009 12:00am
To: Mr Andrew Demetriou, AFL, Melbourne. CC: Mr David Gallop, NRL, Sydney. Mr John O'Neill, ARU, Sydney.
Dear sirs,
Thank you for your kind offers to be very supportive of our use of grounds in Australia for the FIFA World Cup, which as you will know, has been awarded to Australia in 2022.
We'll need - how do you say in Australia? - first crack at the MCG, Docklands Stadium, ANZ Stadium, Suncorp Stadium, Sydney Cricket Ground, Subiaco and other stadiums for a period of one month in 2022. We will need every other crack in that time as well.
We will also require a period of 14 days without other events before the tournament to ensure the playing fields are in good order and also dress the stadium for our corporate partners.
Sure you will understand. See you in 2022!
Yours in sport,
Joseph S (Sepp) Blatter,
FIFA president.
When a spokesman for the AFL trotted out a stiffly uttered statement of support for Australia's bid to stage the World Cup of football yesterday, it was the comment which had to be voiced.
But behind the facade, a lengthening list of worries for bosses of our two biggest football competitions and rugby's Wallabies will descend on them if Blatter announces next year that Australia will host the 2018 or 2022 World Cups.
"We're very supportive of it," a spokesman for AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said yesterday.
"But we haven't received any information in regard to the use of our grounds, or any other details."
Well, fellas, how does the phrase "hiatus for three or four weeks" grab you?
A look at the match and venue schedule for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa shows the scale of headaches to befall the NRL, AFL, and the ARU if Sepp and his cronies on the 24-man FIFA executive decide Australia has more to offer than the US or a European option.
The 2010 World Cup runs from June 11-July 11.
Unlike the Olympics, it is locked into the June-July period every four years because of football's club competitions around the world.
FFA says new FIFA requirements are for the host country to supply 12 stadiums, each with a minimum capacity of 45,000. Yes, 12, but back to that little problem later.
Transpose those World Cup dates to the current NRL, AFL and Australian rugby seasons and the tournament would have covered one Origin match, five rounds of NRL, four AFL rounds and three Wallaby Tests.
Try telling your ardent Collingwood, Broncos or West Coast fans that their teams have to make themselves scarce from their home grounds for a month to make way for games from another code of football.
The NRL and AFL could play games at places such as Shark Park, Geelong, Penrith or Carlton, but the competitions have deliberately adopted the biggest stadiums at the expense of suburban football.
What's that? Play the AFL, league and rugby games in gaps in the World Cup schedule?
Well, in South Africa, eight separate stadiums will have games every three days, on average, for the first 18 days of the competition. After that, with the group matches over and the knockout section under way, three stadiums will stage three games each and two others have two each.
The South Africans are utilising 10 stadiums in nine cities.
FIFA's requirement to have a minimum of 12 stadiums is rendered even more interesting by FFA chief executive Ben Buckley's claim yesterday that all states and territories would host games if the FFA had its wish.
Count in two or three stadiums from Sydney (ANZ, Sydney Cricket Ground and possibly Sydney Football Stadium), two in Melbourne, Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium, Perth's Subiaco, the Gold Coast Stadium and one in Adelaide.
Australia's organisers would then need to bring up to 45,000 capacity another three or four stadiums from the cities of Canberra, Tasmania, Darwin, Townsville or Newcastle.
Buckley said there had been preliminary talks with the major competitions of a normal Australian winter and the FFA had received expressions of support. The other codes understand what a FIFA World Cup would do for Australia, he said.
Like they had a choice. The Federal Government is on board. The state governments have hitched to the wagon. It would be back-scratching time.
But privately, the AFL, NRL and ARU will wipe their brows in December, 2010, if FIFA rejects Australia. Seven long years of anticipation of the world's most popular sporting event coming to their back yards would be bad, but football's extra popularity from actually hosting it would be worse.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/s...003412,00.html