Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Training and Sport) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the opposition I would like to indicate that the opposition support Football Federation Australia’s bid for Australia to host the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cup and will provide whatever support and assistance we can to help Australia win the right to host the cup. We supported the government’s decision in February last year to back a bid and we supported the government’s decision to provide $45.6 million to FFA in December last year.

Football in Australia has come a long way in recent years and has continuously reached new heights since a comprehensive review by David Crawford in 2002-03 and further reforms led by the Australian Sports Commission and Rod Kemp, the former Minister for the Arts and Sport, to put soccer on a more professional footing in Australia. When David Crawford handed down his report in 2003, he said that some might find the recommendations confronting. The work Rod Kemp put into reforming football and implementing the recommendations from David Crawford’s review has gone a long way towards establishing the building blocks for a vibrant, confident football code in Australia. The Socceroos qualifying for the 2006 World Cup for the first time since 1974 was a visible sign of the improvement in the standing of the sport in Australia. The growing success of the A-League, Adelaide United’s appearance in the Asian Cup final and growing participation at the grassroots level are further indications of the health of football in Australia.

Australia’s formal submission this week to FIFA to host the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cup is another milestone in the continued rise of football in Australia. One of the examples to demonstrate the benefit of hosting is the United States’ hosting of the FIFA World Cup in 1994. That hosting led to an enormous surge in interest in football, or soccer, in the United States and an enormous increase in the numbers of young people, school students and college students playing soccer, and it has helped to spread the game of world football into a country where previously it had not taken much of a hold. Also, at the 1996 Olympic Games, the United States women’s soccer team really captured that nation’s attention and led to a big increase in young women and women at college taking up soccer.

These achievements are remarkable when we consider where soccer has come from. It is less than six years ago that Soccer Australia was declared broke. For FFA now to be in a position to place a bid to host the World Cup is a tremendous achievement and an indication of how successful these reforms have been. Let us hope that the recommendations David Crawford will hand down to this government on Australian sport, which we are all eagerly anticipating, will, if implemented, have the same positive effect on Australian sport. A successful bid for Australia to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup would bring tremendous tourism benefits. The FIFA World Cup would be the biggest global marketing campaign for Australia since the 2000 Olympics, which has been recognised as the most effective marketing campaign and exposure this country has ever experienced. A global event like the FIFA World Cup would bring unprecedented tourism benefits to Australia and, with tourism bodies fully committed to supporting the bid, there is a united approach to securing the competition in 2018. The FIFA World Cup would be equal in world viewing to the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies. Based on the previous World Cup in Germany, a World Cup here could benefit Australia to the tune of nearly $6 billion through more jobs, visitors and infrastructure spending.

As the minister has said, along with Australia’s bid, FIFA have received 11 bids from 13 countries across three confederations. We are competing against a strong field, but this has not deterred us in the past. We should remember that it took three bids for Australia to win the rights to host the Olympic Games in 2000. Our past success in hosting major events such as the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, the 2003 Rugby World Cup and the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games demonstrates our ability to successfully host a FIFA World Cup. In addition, the growing participation in football in Australia and the fact that the Asian region is a major growth area places us in a strong position to host the World Cup. Australian clubs now compete in the Asian Football Confederation Champions League. Australia now competes to be one of four teams from the Asian Football Confederation to go to the World Cup, giving us a much better pathway to the World Cup than in the past. I have tremendous confidence in FFA chairman Frank Lowy and FFA chief executive officer Ben Buckley to lead the charge for this bid, and I congratulate them on their work so far. In 2003 former sports minister Rod Kemp declared:

Soccer is the sleeping giant of Australian sport …

A successful bid for the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 would no doubt underpin this statement.

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