Roar offer to play Socceroos
Article from: The Courier-Mail
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23769064-3102,00.html
Marco Monteverde and Tom Smithies
May 28, 2008 12:00am
IRAQ'S suspension from FIFA may not deprive 50,000 supporters the chance to see the Socceroos play at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday after all.
Queensland Roar coach Frank Farina on Tuesday night confirmed he was in talks with national boss Pim Verbeek about a possible match between the two sides.
FIFA is threatening to kick Iraq - scheduled to meet Australia in two World Cup qualifiers over the next 10 days - out of international soccer for a year unless the nation's government reinstates the Iraq Football Association by midnight Thursday.
FIFA boss Sepp Blatter made an impassioned plea on Tuesday for the Iraqi Government to back down, saying he could "not understand" how the 2007 Asian Cup champions faced the possibility of being thrown out of the World Cup.
Mr Blatter was emphatic that the match would be played.
"It must go ahead," he said.
"I'm not a betting man but I would like to be a prophet. I have a good feeling, they will play in Brisbane."
The Iraqi Government published a decree last week saying it was disbanding the allegedly-corrupt Iraq Olympic Committee and all affiliated sports federations.
However it has since notified the Iraq Football Association that it is not affected by the decision, hoping to reverse the World Cup suspension.
"We received a letter from the secretary-general of the cabinet which clarifies that the decision does not include the sports federations, including the soccer federation," Iraqi Football Association head Hussein Saeed said.
Despite Verbeek talking down the possibility of a scratch match if Iraq's ban was not lifted, Farina said the Roar was more than willing to provide opposition for the Socceroos.
"I actually put it forward to Pim that if they needed anyone to play on Sunday, we'd be happy to do it," the former national coach said.
"He rang me back and said he'd stay in touch in terms of if there was anything we could help out with. If they wanted us to play a game, we wouldn't have any problems with that. For us it would be fantastic."
Verbeek revealed a "plan B" was in place if the Iraq ban was not lifted by FIFA, but was certain the World Cup qualifier would proceed.
"I'm 100 per cent convinced," the Dutchman, a former coach of South Korea, said."Of course we have plan B, in case it's not going on.
Football Federation Australia stands to lose about $3 million in revenue if a match is not played on Sunday. About 50,000 tickets to the Brisbane match have been sold.
