Bin Hamman Comments RE: NZ & Phoenix

Bin Hamman Comments RE: NZ & Phoenix

Fire away boys.

http://www.sbs.com.au/sport/blog/single/114652/Memo-to-New-Zealand:-make-a-dinner-date-with-Bin-Hammam

Memo to New Zealand: make a dinner date with Bin Hammam

25 November 2009 | 15:00 - By Jesse Fink

The Finktank has been in Kuala Lumpur this week, attending the AFC Annual Awards, Asian football's most prestigious gongs.

KL might seem an unusual host city, given the Malaysian game is, as one footballer living here told me, "totally f***ed", but it's where the AFC has long been based in a leafy compound called AFC House in Bukit Jalil, about a 20-minute drive outside the city.

It was there that I met Mohamed bin Hammam yesterday, the president of the Asian Football Confederation fresh from announcing a US$1 billion marketing deal with World Sport Group.

Hammam met me and a select group of journalists for a quick 30-minute round-table conference, flanked by his careful media minders, and answered our questions succinctly but with refreshing honesty.

He believed Asian football was "lacking maturity" compared to Europe but thought the Asian Champions League's experiment with a one-off final in Tokyo had been a "success", opening up the way for Australia to bid for a future final.

He was "not happy" with the voting system for the awards that have seen stars such as Tim Cahill and Mark Schwarzer overlooked because they play in Europe, but felt it was incumbent of the AFC as a priority to recognise those players residing and playing their football in Asia.

He didn't like Wellington Phoenix being in the A-League, insisting it had to be a wholly "Australian entity" if it wanted to ever compete in the ACL.

He rejected the idea, when I put it to him, of splitting the AFC into West and East zones, and insisted "we are all Asians", despite lingering resentment in the Middle East of Australia's admittance to the AFC in 2007 and our subsequent qualification for the World Cup as an Asian nation.

But most interestingly, he confessed he'd agreed to let Australia into the AFC because he'd been asked out to dinner by Frank Lowy. It was that simple, he said.

Which just goes to show how relationships and not geography matters when it comes to doing business in Asia.

It prompted me to ask Bin Hammam what he thought of New Zealand, which had recently defeated Bahrain to qualify for South Africa 2010, doing the same thing and leaving Oceania for Asia.

Hammam just laughed and said it was something he hasn't heard anything about other than tittle-tattle from the media and wasn't sure how it could benefit Asia.

When I suggested it could mean five places at the World Cup instead of Asia's current 4.5, he laughed again but wouldn't be pressed on the issue.

Yet I got the distinct impression it was something he might be amenable to, so long as he was approached and not the other way around.

So if there are any Kiwi billionaires reading this who think they can help drag New Zealand football into the 21st century and a whole new world of possibilities, I suggest you get on the blower to the AFC and ask for Mohamed.

Book a restaurant, wear a nice suit and send a driver to pick him up. A bit of courage, an interesting proposal and some good old-fashioned charm can clearly go a long way.

Just ask Frank Lowy.

We don't now and never have (ever since he called the Phoenix logo fascist ) condoned posting Jesse Fink on here DS.

He called our logo facist?

Loltastic.

Didn't know mate, I actualyl found the link to this article here. http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11022

Thought this page would 'expose' the article a bit more.

What did Jesse say, was this when the club was being formed?

Yes.  Original draft logo was likened to Nazi German imagery.

Um.

Don't recall, so he's black-banned from here, correct?

http://blogs.foxsports.com.au/football/index.php/foxsports/comments/phoenix_schmoenix/P30/

He's also made a numpty of himself many times since.  He's about as welcome as Foster.
Hard News2009-11-27 19:24:04

I'll make a note of it.

tbh, we're not that stressy, I just like to have an excuse to call him a twat as I think he's a big-noting numpty.

Fink is not that popular over here either (which I'm sure you're aware of being on TWGF Over the years).

He seemed to move from internet blogging to a paid gig somehow.

He's had a bit of a war with thefootballtragic and I'd back Mikey's views WAY ahead of the finks.

I recall that, he came on TWGF a few years ago and something similar happened there as well, a bit of a Keyboard Warrior is Jesse me thinks.

Ok this may be a really stupid question, but what makes a club "australian"? Cant be the owners, players or coaches becuase a LOT of teams have foreign everything. Where its based?

I thought with our lot all being registered in Australia, why cant' we play in the ACL? We are in effect an australian club are we not?

Well we are the only club allowed NZers who are not counted as foreigners...

He actually seems to have relaxed his opinion on the issue. It sounds like he does not mind as much as he did before that we are in the league however his stance over ACL is the same.

Yeah I've noticed a couple of quotes over the past few months from him (possibly since Blatter's comments?) which suggest that it's the ACL issue which has MBH's knickers in a knot. Which I can understand - there is no way we should be able to compete with both Kiwis and Aussie's as locals - that's not fair. We would have to count our Kiwi's as foreigners in the 8+3 rule in the ACL.

Once again, this is easily solved by joining Australia.

Well we have no ACL access at the moment so how would it be any different?

Honestly don't care about being allowed into the ACL. It would be nice, of course, but just having a team to support in a solid league is good enough for me.
valeo2009-11-28 15:47:55

yes. Thats effectively what we have now. I liked the idea of us being allowed in if our kiwi players do count as imports for those games. Sure it would mean dropping some players, but would be good to build some depth in the team and trial out possible players while still being competitive

Crowther

TBH, I think MBH has mellowed his attitude to the Nix in the A-League because he knows it is out of his control. FIFA have endorsed us and in the end it is the FFA's decision. He won't want to push hard on the issue because politicallyit makes him look weak if (when) he loses and our license gets extended. One thing he is not is stupid.
He is still hot on us not being in the ACL because he can control that.

Also, in response to the fink, NZF have stated they don't want to be in Asia. While it would produce more meaningful games, that comes with a pretty huge price tag. We simply couldn't afford the travel for 6 teams trying to qualify for WC's. So what do we do then? Chose which teams we enter? Maybe only enter the U17 or U20 WC every 2nd time? Only have 1 womens team? Seems like a pretty big backward step to me.
And before someone mentions it we would eat up the WC money we will shortly get pretty quickly by using it for this sort of thing. Seems there are better things it could be used on.
IMHO, until NZF has more money coming in I agree we are better staying in the OFC.

I bet the NZFC teams think so to based on the money they get from a NZ side going to the CWC every year.

ACL for me please. Terry deserves it, and how awesome would it be for the Nix to play competitive games up here where I am and to have visits by good J-League or K-League teams at the Ring of Fire?

BTW, I don't buy the expense argument about travelling to Asia. It is no more expensive to fly to Japan that it is to fly to Tahiti or the Solomons. The additional commercial revenue should easily outstrip any minimal increase in flight costs.
SC032009-11-28 17:41:40

Exactly - cost of flights to Qatar and Iran are certainly more than Tahiti and the Solomans... silly to think otherwise

Also the opportunity for extra sponsorship should counter this argument. The ONLY reasons we are not in Asia is because Asia doesn't want us and Oceania needs us.

NZ Football have said they dont want to be in Asia...
There are plenty of reasons that we arent in Asia.

*Rolls eyes*  Want me to find a picture of Ricki with his arm out?

Doesn't count, that's a southpaw one, needs the other arm...

Yes because Asia doesn't want us. We don't want to be rejected because it will look bad so stay in Oceania where our football is not advancing (because we play no games practically and when we do they are versus the worst teams in the world). The only reason we have developed in football is because of the Phoenix which are an ASIAN side.

Phoenix isn't an Asian side - if we were, we'd be eligible to play in the ACL.

We play in an Asain competition was the point I was getting across. And we are not an Oceanian side so what are we?

That's a very good question.

At the end: Stevo2009-11-30 23:51:29