Here's Proof

Wednesday 4 June, 2008

To capitalise on the profile of the Socceroos� qualifiers, events will be held in Abu Dhabi with the support of Australian Business Group on the 9th, Dubai on the 10th aided by Australian Business Chamber, and on June 12th in Doha, supported by the Australia-New Zealand Business Group.

Austrade�s Dubai-based Trade Commissioner James Wyndham said the Socceroos campaign would capture the attention of the expatriate and business community in the UAE and Qatar.

�There are close to 20,000 Australian expatriates in the UAE, compared to just over 3,000 six years ago. Trade is also rapidly increasing. In 2006-07 Australia�s exports to the United Arab Emirates grew by a staggering 45%, with total two-way merchandise trade expanding by almost 70%. Australian construction expertise, food, fashion, services, and a wide range of products are increasingly in demand,� Mr Wyndham said.

"Around 100 business people are expected at each function. Austrade and the Australian Embassy in Abu Dhabi helped connect the FFA to local business groups. Austrade is keen to continue working with the FFA to use the platform of the football as a means to build the profile of Australian companies and generate international business opportunities for Australia,� Mr Wyndham said.

Football Federation Australia�s Head of Corporate and Public Affairs Bonita Mersiades said football is uniquely placed to help Australian businesses integrate into the rapidly expanding economies of Asia and the Middle East.

�Building links for the international business community through football also helps repay the Australian Government�s investment in developing the game, and supports our goal to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup,� Ms Mersiades said.

Austrade�s Chief Economist Tim Harcourt said the world game�s popularity and Australia�s recent rise to greater prominence in football assisted by the World Cup success and high profile marquee players like Harry Kewell, offered outstanding potential to promote Australian business strengths in Asia, the Gulf region and beyond.

�Australia has more trade engagement in the nations that make up the Asian Football Confederation than anywhere else,� Mr Harcourt said.

�The top ranked Asian Football Confederation nations accounted for nearly $76 billion in exports compared to just over $16 billion of the top ranked FIFA nations.

Mr Harcourt said strong people-to-people and cultural ties are an important part of the business potential of Football.

�The migrant community has been the backbone of the game in Australia and according to Austrade research they have also been the backbone of the Australian exporter community,� Mr Harcourt said.

�Exporting companies are more likely to be started by immigrants � think Bing Lee, Crazy Johns, and Frank Lowy himself � with many having close ties to football too,� Mr Harcourt said.

Bonita Mersiades (FFA), Tim Harcourt and James Wyndham (Austrade), are available for media interviews.

ENDS

David Varga
Mob: +61 434 567 673 

For further news and information from the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade) visit www.austrade.gov.au/mediacentre.

The Socceroos are set to become the sporting team that gives back to Australia and its taxpayers as they attempt to leverage millions of US dollars in trade for the country through their Asian World Cup qualifying journey.

Australian soccer will receive $32 million in federal funding over the next four years.

But Football Federation Australia (FFA) believes the sport is in the unique position of being able to repay that with interest by boosting trade with booming Asia and the Middle East, thanks to frequent Socceroos matches played in the region.

"We can help the government, we can help the corporate sector connect with different parts of the world so in some ways that's a way for us to repay the investment that's been made by the Australian government," Football Federation Australia boss Ben Buckley said.

Austrade's chief economist Tim Harcourt said the top-ranked Asian Football Confederation nations accounted for nearly $76 billion of Australia's exports, making the sport the ideal platform to encourage trade links with Asia.

The first steps have been taken during the Socceroos' World Cup qualifying campaign in the Middle East.

The team, led by skipper Harry Kewell, were the guests of honour at an Australian Business in the Gulf lunch in Dubai on Thursday.

The United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, is Australia's 17th largest trading partner worth around $5 billion in trade last year - mainly in the business and construction sectors.

More than 600 Australian companies have a presence in the UAE and there are between 15,000 and 20,000 Australian expatriates living and working there.

Austrade's Dubai-based trade commissioner James Wyndham said the Socceroos' current campaign through the Middle East promised great spin offs for Australian business in the region.

"What the Socceroos are doing today is bringing together 200 Australian CEOs and business people, building the glue for these Australian companies to do business here," Wyndham told AAP.

"It's also raising the profile that Australian companies are here, they're on the ground doing a good job.

"If we can have the Socceroos as this wonderful marketing platform going around the region flying the flag for Australia, their success on the field is certainly replicated in the boardroom as well."

The FFA also used Thursday's lunch to launch a major charm offensive to bolster Australia's 2018 World Cup bid.

Buckley has called on all Australian expatriates to become unofficial "ambassadors" for the World Cup bid, spreading the word why Australia would be an excellent World Cup host.

KEVIN Rudd has long known politics is sport. Now it seems Australia's 26th prime minister has come to understand the reverse is also true. In recent months, the dominant sporting code in Australia has been political football. A new government has meant new priorities. There have been winners and losers. For soccer it has been a triumph. Australia, so recently thrilled just to attend a World Cup, now wants to host one. Last week, the Football Federation Australia announced a new Gold Coast franchise owned by billionaire Clive Palmer would join an A-league that has outstripped expectations in its first three years.

The announcement means two of the Australia's four richest men will own soccer clubs (FFA chairman Frank Lowy is also majority shareholder in Sydney FC). Another rich-lister, TV billionaire Bruce Gordon, is rumoured to be interested in running a Wollongong team. It all makes Melbourne Victory and its owner, Geoff Lord, (valued at $115 million in 2005) look almost anaemic.

Soccer has come a long way in a short time and Canberra has noticed. This week the Socceroos have been training and playing in Dubai and Qatar. But as Australia's squad went through its paces, the Government was not far away. An Austrade delegation accompanied the team, keen to use the green-and-gold presence to open doors for Australian businesses in a series of lunches. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith watched from the stands.

It is a small example of the nexus forming between soccer, money, power and politics in Australia � a nexus that has long been understood in the rest of the world.

Soccer is global and it is also big business. It's not hard to see the appeal for an internationalist diplomat-turned-prime minister. Korean Football Federation president Chung Mong-joon moonlights as a Korean MP and a candidate for president of his nation. He is also global chairman of the Hyundai group and vice-president of FIFA. Across Asia and Europe, Africa and the Americas, powerful men and women take an interest. So too now does Kevin Rudd.

As the Socceroos trained last month in Sydney, the Prime Minister was front and centre, reportedly not recognising our premier footballing export, Harry Kewell, but delighted to accept a green-and-gold shirt with Kevin 18 on the back.

The number relates to Australia's audacious bid to host the World Cup in 2018 � a bid that is very much a partnership between the FFA and the Government.

The FFA recently named 14 "football ambassadors" charged with boosting the game. Two, Kate Ellis and Stephen Conroy, are government ministers. When The Age reported last week that Australia's World Cup bid could cost taxpayers $60 million without much chance of success, Ellis fired off a letter to the editor defending the FFA.

Key people in soccer say the new Government "gets" the sport and its potential in a way the old one never did. As a diplomat, Rudd spent time in Sweden and China, both countries in which the round-ball game is popular. In the final Howard years, Lowy used his profile to win the confidence of government � getting support for his plan to refashion a sport wracked by division and corruption. Under Labor, he has sold the Government a vision for the future.

"In all the discussions we have had with the Government, they see that football can play an important role in engaging with our neighbours, building cultural ties and assisting in the development of health and infrastructure," FFA chief executive Ben Buckley says. "It can play a significant role in helping countries engage with each other and understand each other. Football can reach out to more countries than other sports."

Another FFA ambassador is broadcaster George Negus. The lifelong soccer fan was on the board of governing body Soccer Australia in the 1990s, fighting vainly to drum up support or interest from government and business.

"I always said we were a sleeping giant," he says. "We needed people to realise that we were part of an international phenomenon, not a sport. Football is larger than anything in the world. It is the language of global influence, economic and political clout and this Government has realised that. Wherever I travel, the only two constants are football and Coca-cola."

Former prime minister John Howard was a rugby man. Now things have changed. One of the first moves by the Labor Government was to junk a $25 million Howard election promise to build a rugby training academy in Queensland. At the same time, to rugby's consternation, Rudd had pledged $32 million to soccer, money duly delivered.

"We do have a fantastic relationship with the Federal Government, and we are delighted that they have been strong supporters of the game," Buckley says. "To be successful in a World Cup bid, you must have a very strong partnership with government � We have a shared view that a World Cup would be of significant benefit to Australia that goes way beyond sport."

This new unity of purpose was on show last month, when FIFA president Sepp Blatter travelled to Sydney for the governing body's annual congress. Rudd was there again, pressing the bid in Blatter's ear. When it comes to lobbying high-powered guests, nobody can bend it like Kevin.

It is a bid that will take years, cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and for which the bookmakers have Australia a distant seventh favourite behind cashed-up rivals such as England, Russia, China and the US. So why are we bothering?

"The World Cup is the single biggest sporting event in the world, and that brings with it economic benefits, social benefits and international prestige benefits," says Buckley. "It has been proven to work effectively for other nations."

Ex-Socceroo and now SBS face of football Craig Foster agrees. Foster says hosting the World Cup would change everything, but just bidding will help. "In the end I believe that football can and will one day take over the sporting landscape of Australia," he says. "This game has a huge role to play in the future of Australia and this Federal Government has been more progressive than before in realising it. Kevin Rudd clearly understands the potential of football above any other sport to engage with our regional partners. It was something that John Howard was slow to grasp and never really did."

Soccer, Foster says, has been disorganised and slow to capitalise on its advantages, but not now. "We haven't been savvy in leveraging the power we had," he says. "It's changing. Frank Lowy clearly has a new level of political knowhow that the sport has lacked. And he brings credibility with those in power."

Buckley points to the impact the Socceroos' participation in Germany had on the sport and says a home World Cup would be a quantum leap. He shies away from Foster's prediction that the event would lift soccer to the nation's premier code but also takes issue with the idea that we start the race as a rank outsider.

"I'm not sure we are coming from a fair way behind. It is a very competitive field, but Australia has some wonderful assets to host an event of this magnitude," he says. Among them are stable security, excellent sporting facilities and tourist infrastructure and a record of hosting big events. Just bidding will create momentum and excitement for the game, he says.

"But that's not the reason we are doing it," Buckley stresses. "We are confident we can put forward a very compelling bid, and the legacy it will leave if we are successful will be very far reaching."

PricewaterhouseCoopers is compiling an audit of Australian facilities to gain a better idea of the cost of the bid. It will be finished in early August and be presented to state and federal governments.

The process started in October when FIFA announced it would get rid of a policy that decreed the tournament would be rotated across continents. Australia, building clout and credibility under Lowy and longing to make a statement, was no longer counted out from bidding by the 2002 World Cup in Japan/Korea, a fellow member of the Asian confederation. Lowy wanted to bid and went to Canberra to meet the Howard government and Labor. Whatever Rudd heard, he liked it. In February the new PM jumped on board the bid. A month later he won the involvement of state premiers.

According to figures supplied by the FFA, Australia's rugby World Cup in 2003 had a positive economic impact of $289 million. The 2000 Olympics were much larger, producing about $6 billion in TV rights, tourism, ticket sales and improved facilities.

For the Japan-Korea World Cup estimates range between $7 billion and $27 billion.

Bigger than an Olympics, the cup would be hosted in eight cities, feature 32 teams, support staff and fans. The 2006 World Cup brought 2 million tourists to Germany, employed 85,000 people and reached a cumulative TV audience of 26.3 billion.

Now here's the key bit and the argument the FFA will be making to FIFA delegates from around the world, who will vote in three years to decide the tournament hosts. Of the TV viewers clapping eyes on Germany, the largest numbers � 34% � were in Asia. While most TV money still comes from Europe, Asian power is rising. Rudd likes to speak of the "Asia-Pacific century". Nowhere is it more apt than in soccer.

So what will your money pay for? Much of it is lobbying. As the bid starts later this year, expect to see international FIFA delegates touring Australian cities, stadiums and luxury hotels. The bid process also involves a sort of benign pork-barrelling, offering funds to developing nations to be spent on infrastructure and sporting programs in the hope of winning votes. A decision will not be reached until mid-2011.

State governments will be expected to foot most of the bill for stadium renovations and construction but will be left with better facilities. Buckley is adamant the bid machinery should be lean. It will be run from within the FFA by a handful of staff.

Australia has already put in the sole bid for the 2015 Asian Cup, a tournament that could be viewed as a dress rehearsal for the big one. Hopes are high FIFA will award the 2018 and 2022 cups at the same time, doubling Australia's chances of landing the event.

A FFA source says delegates who attended the recent Sydney FIFA congress had two major associations with Australia. They all recalled the success of the Sydney Olympics and many had heard about and were intrigued by Rudd's apology to the stolen generations. It seems the football world might be as interested in Australia's Prime Minister as he is in it.

Soccer has many new friends, only some in high places, but all welcomed. Lowy and Buckley are trying to capitalise on the goodwill, while old hands such as Negus and Foster stand up proudly and dare to dream. "We are the only continent on the planet never to host the biggest sports tournament in the world," Foster says. "Why shouldn't we get it?"

?ON FIELD 32 teams, hosted by eight cities.

?BID COST FFA denies reports it could be $60 million but says it will be tens of millions. England reportedly spending �30 million ($A62 million) on a bid.

?CONTENDERS Signalling plans to bid are: England, Russia, the US, China, Spain/Portugal, Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg.

?DECISION FIFA delegates to vote in June 2011.

?PROBLEM With the next two World Cups in South Africa and Brazil, Australia must combat the idea that 2018 should be Europe's turn.

?SOLUTION FIFA has indicated it may award the 2018 and 2022 tournaments at the same time. Australia says it would bid for both.

?FUNDING Labor promised $32 million for soccer in 2007 election campaign, double the amount committed by Howard government. Federal and state governments would provide extra funding.

Dan Silkstone is an Age reporter.