http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/11/26/2022-world-cup-whats-at-stake-and-who-will-decide/
By Doug Conway
Yesterday
2022 World Cup: What’s at stake and who will decide
If one event can make the five-ring circus of the Olympic Games seem modest it’s football’s World Cup. If the 2022 championship comes down under following next week’s FIFA executive committee bid vote, Australia can expect what football chief Frank Lowy calls a “nation-changing event”.
The Olympics consume one city for a fortnight.
The World Cup consumes a whole nation for a month.
It is watched on TV not just by most people in most places but – forgive some poetic licence – practically everyone everywhere.
The estimated cumulative audience is four or five times the world’s population.
Governing body FIFA has 208 member countries – more than the IOC or the United Nations.
If Australia wins FIFA’s vote in Zurich on December 2, the event will embrace much more than the 10 match cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Townsville, Gold Coast, Newcastle, Canberra and Geelong.
The fact that 64 base camps must be selected – two per team – will bring regional Australia into play in a big way.
Think of the way the Socceroos went rural, opting to make home in a swish chateau in leafy southern Germany in 2006, then a five-star hunting lodge outside Johannesburg at the 2010 World Cup.
The 32 finalists will also spread themselves across 48 training grounds – the 12 match venues plus three others within striking distance of each.
The sheer scale of the World Cup surprises even those who have a good idea what to expect.
That was the experience of seasoned Australian players like Lucas Neill and Craig Moore in 2006.
“Nothing can really prepare you for it,” said Moore.
“The whole world really is watching,” said Neill.
Launching a bid is in itself a massive logistical undertaking.
Australia’s cost around $45 million, rumoured to be half the amount spent by the United States.
It’s to be hoped size doesn’t count, for Australia’s bid book, handsomely bound in kangaroo leather, runs to 764 pages, a mere novelette compared with 1250 pages for England’s 2018 World Cup tilt and 1700 for Australia’s main rival the US.
Australia’s bid was accompanied by 84,000 pages of annexes.
That is a reflection of how detailed FIFA’s specifications and requirements are, from big-ticket items like seating capacity, car parking, proximity to airports and CBDs, ticketing, accreditation, accommodation, transport, hospitality, medical facilities, doping control, broadcasting and environmental issues to minutiae like flagpoles and the width of players tunnels.
“This is arguably the most competitive events bid ever,” said Stuart Taggart, head of bid operations for Australia.
“FIFA has never before decided two host cities at once (2018 and 2022), and rarely do nine sophisticated countries get involved in such a big bidding process as far as 12 years out from the event.”
FIFA’s executive committee will decide hosts for both the 2018 World Cup – from a field including England, Russia, Belgium/Netherlands and Portugal/Spain – and the 2022 event from the US, Australia, Qatar, Japan and South Korea.
“It does afford the winners the opportunity to deliver the best ever World Cup because they have so long to plan it,” said Taggart.
FIFA’s plan was to maximise revenue streams over such a long lead-up time, but critics say 12 years is too long in advance to name a host city.
Much can change in that time, they argue, and what looks like a perfect host in 2010 can end up being far from it in 2022.
One thing that won’t change any time soon, if ever, is the World Cup’s pre-eminent place in global sport.
Billions of dollars are involved.
Australia’s bid puts a price tag of $2.8 billion on readying the country for the extravaganza.
But much more is at stake in terms of television rights, tourism and other economic benefits, not to mention the inestimable value added to Australia’s standing in the world.
Australia’s bid includes an economic impact analysis which forecasts $3.9 billion in direct expenditure from items including tickets, accommodation and meals.
It is based on projections of 4.7 million spectators and expects to create 74,000 full-time equivalent jobs and an increase in gross domestic product (GDP) of $5.3 billion.
If Australia gets the nod on December 2 in Zurich expect Frank Lowy, notwithstanding his 80 years, to leap much higher than NSW Premier John Fahey did when Sydney won the Olympics in Monaco in 1993.
Citius, altius, fortius – faster, higher, stronger – may be the Olympic motto.
But the World Cup is simply big, bigger, biggest.
The 22-man jury deciding Australia’s 2022 World Cup fate allegedly includes a gangster and some who can be bought with money or women.
One has been reprimanded over shady dealings.
Two other members of world body FIFA’s executive committee won’t vote at all after being banned in a vote-buying scandal.
It is into this murky world that countries with cleanskin reputations like Australia have had to step to win the right to stage the biggest show in world sport.
Small wonder that even a businessman as formidable and experienced as Australian billionaire and FFA boss Frank Lowy has described the contest as one of the toughest of his life.
It was a remark Lowy made even before the London Sunday Times sting which led to bans on two members – Tahitian Reynald Temarii and Nigerian Amos Adamu – in an alleged vote-buying scandal.
There were further claims – later discounted by FIFA through lack of evidence – that Spain/Portugal’s 2018 bid and Qatar’s in 2022 had agreed to swap the support of a combined seven votes, four from one camp and three from the other.
Reporters posing as businessmen representing US interests also filmed former FIFA general secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen apparently making himself available as a $330,000 fixer who could arrange approaches to officials to see what they wanted.
Zen-Ruffinen said two FIFA executive committee members could be bribed with money and a third with ladies.
He described a fourth as “the biggest gangster you will find on earth” and said he believed the minimum fee for this person would be $510,000.
FIFA’s all-powerful executive committee, it must be said, also includes some of the game’s greatest exemplars, including former playing giants like Franz Beckenbauer and Michel Platini.
The voting panel, reduced from 24 to 22 following the bans on Adamu and Temarii, now comprises nine Europeans, four Asians and three from each of Africa, South America and CONCACAF (central and North America).
Their average age is 63.
Australia is the only one of the nine bids not directly represented.
These are the men who will rule on Australia’s bid:-
President:
SEPP BLATTER, 74, Switzerland. Served 17 years as general secretary and CEO before succeeding Brazil’s Joao Havelange as the eighth FIFA President in 1998. His early reign was marked by the dismissal of his deputy Michel Zen-Ruffinen, who has surfaced in the latest allegations of vote-buying. Zen-Ruffinen had drawn up a dossier outlining allegations of financial mismanagement within FIFA, but Swiss authorities cleared Blatter of any wrongdoing.
Senior Vice President:
JULIO GRONDONA, 79, Argentina. Businessman, founder and president of Arsenal Futbol Club 1957-1976, President of Atltico Independiente from 1976-1981.
Vice Presidents:
ISSA HAYATOU, 64, Cameroon. Son of a local sultan and brother of a former prime minister. General Secretary and President of Cameroon’s FA. Stood unsuccessfully against Blatter for FIFA presidency in 2002.
DR CHUNG MONG-JOON, 59, South Korea. Prominent MP touted as potential president of his country. Also considering a challenge to Blatter for FIFA presidency next May. Controlling shareholder in Hyundai Heavy Industries, one of the largest corporations in the world.
JACK WARNER, 67, Trinidad and Tobago. Real estate developer, President of CONCACAF since 1990. Minister of Works and Transport, has served as Trinidad’s acting prime minister. In the 1980s and 1990s, Warner obtained FIFA’s television rights for the Caribbean for a low price and then controversially sold them on to broadcasters. He also on-sold tickets for Germany’s 2006 World Cup through a family travel business, but received only a rap over the knuckles from FIFA, which said: “He should be more prudent and cautious when it comes to ticketing and should also oversee the activities of his son a little more.”
ANGEL VILLAR LLONA, 60, Spain. President of Spanish federation, lawyer and former international player, winning 22 caps in the 1970s.
MICHEL PLATINI, 55, France. UEFA President and former French international star. Top goal scorer in French team that won the 1984 European championship. Played in the 1978, 1982 and 1986 World Cups. French coach for four years. Co-organiser of the 1998 World Cup in France.
GEOFF THOMPSON, 64, England. Former magistrate, FA chairman and a vice-president of both UEFA and FIFA. In May 2010 he replaced Lord Triesman as the head of England’s 2018 bid, after Triesman stepped down due to allegations in a newspaper sting of him accusing fellow World Cup 2018 hopefuls Russia and Spain of planning to bribe referees in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Members:
Dr MICHEL D’HOOGHE, 64, Belgium. Honorary president Belgium FA, former president FC Bruges. Head of physical and sports medicine department at Bruges Hospital.
RICARDO TERRA TEIXEIRA, 63, Brazil. Brazilian association president at least until the end of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, when he will complete 25 years in the office. Married Laaccia Havelange, daughter of former FIFA president Joao Havelange, divorcing after 30 years in 1997.
MOHAMED BIN HAMMAM, 61, Qatar. Managing Director of his own group of companies since 1976. Asian Confederation president since 2002, overseeing creation of the AFC Champions League and the acceptance of Australia into the AFC in 2006. Indicated a desire to challenge Blatter for FIFA presidency next year then withdrew.
SENES ERZIK, 68, Turkey. UEFA Vice-President, Honorary President Turkish FA. Economics graduate and executive of a pharmaceuticals company.
CHUCK BLAZER, 65, USA. General Secretary of CONCACAF. Former Commissioner of American Soccer League, corporate executive and marketing consultant.
WORAWI MAKUDI, 59, Thailand. General Secretary of Thai FA.
NICOLAS LEOZ, 82, Paraguay. Lawyer, sports journalist, part-time history professor, land owner, businessman, President of CONMEBOL since 1986.
JUJI OGURA, 72, Japan. General Manager Forukawa FC. Japan FA president and chairman of Japan 2022 bid committee.
MARIOS LEFKARITIS, 64, Cyprus. Entrepreneur, UEFA honorary Treasurer and Honorary President of Cyprus FA.
JACQUES ANOUMA, 58, Ivory Coast. President Ivorian FA since 2002. Financial manager for various multinational companies and the Ivorian administration.
FRANZ BECKENBAUER, 65, Germany. Nicknamed the “Kaiser”, the only man to captain and manage his country to World Cup wins (in 1974 and 1990). With Bayern Munich won three consecutive European Cups from 1974 to 1976. Led Germany’s successful bid to host the 2006 World Cup and chaired the organising committee.
RAFAEL SALGUERO, 63, Guatemala. Solicitor, former player in Guatemala, official of Guatemalan FA from 1976 to 1990.
HANY ABO RIDA, 57, Egypt. Engineer and businessman. Member of Organising Committee for U-20 World Cup 2010.
VITALY MUTKO, 51, Russia. Former President of Russian Football Union who signed Guus Hiddink as coach from Australia in 2006. Sports Minister since 2008. One of Vladimir Putin’s authorised representatives in his 2000 election campaign.
