Oceania's World Cup?

Hi all. Just wanted to say that I've recently started my own footy blog and have made an article on why I think Australia / Oceania should be given the opportunity to host the World Cup. Feel free to see what you think and give it critique if you so wish... :)

https://ffv24.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/oceanias-wo...

Sorry for the formatting issues folks. All sorted now. ;)

With respect to your effort, you should have stopped writing any more once you wrote "The answer quite simply would likely be no."

Wrong time zones, no sponsorship market, no crouds, in the asshole of nowhere, no stadia... oh and OFC is an utter back water. Tell me about our second best team at confeds. Would you like to know FIFA think?

If you read on he's actually arguing that NZ and Australia put in a joint bid, not NZ alone.

Now, Australia could easily host it on their own, so a joint bid with NZ would have some feasibility...

I did read that. It wont happen.

Good timing PaulSG

Dont worry about JV, Martin Sneddon is on your side

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11431616

Just listened to Sneddon on RadioNZ. It's just the start of the conversation in his mind.

Can't see it happening myself.

The FIFA World Cup featuring midget boxing and Tenia Pora

Yeah. You sit there and dream about the day it may happen. At the very best, its an incredibly huge long shot with less than 1% happening so while I might look like a naysayer, the odds are like that for a reason

I'm a dreamer. Lets do this (realistically one group, 2nd rnd and quarterfinal). The catalyst to finally sort out Westpac Stadium - rectangle, tiered for smaller games and a roof :)

Everything new starts with a dream / vision..long shots included

Hope we are both around long enough to attend the games :-)

This is beyond a long shot. This is another galaxy far, far away..

Remember Aussies bid for the 2022 World Cup? 

They chucked a cool $46m at that and gained a total of 1 vote.

Christ if south Africa could hold it and now Qatar we and the west island could do it in our sleep.

I think you underestimate how many people would travel here for it, and how ill equipped we would be to accomodate that. 

We can't even handle public transport to a cricket World Cup game in Wellington. 

Politically expedient for FIFA to host it in South Africa. They also had suitable stadia and only had to build the  new one in Soweto.

And just how is that Qatar WC shaping up? How many workers have died so far? Had to be moved to Winter which is going to cause Havoc with the Euro Leagues and we will see all sorts of shenanigans happen with that

Nope, on top of Soccer City they built new stadiums in Nelspruit, Polokwane, Cape Town, PE and even Durban when Kings Park was just down the road.

They also refurbished the other stadiums, some heavily like in Bloemfontein.

Okay stand corrected on the stadia, but point still stands about it being politically expedient for FIFA. South Africa itself also had a huge appetite to host the event and to put the money into the event. In NZ this will not be the case.

As Sthn Jeff said, how many votes did Australia get for $46m invested? You do realise AucklandPhoenix that NZF has no cash right and the government, not able to generate a surplus, aren't going to drop cash into it unless they get a return? Giving money to sports organisations is not a popular move right now (Americas Cup) and Duco do not do anything unless it benefits Duco. Snedden is a smart operator but FIFA are a completely different beast altogether and they will just laugh as small timers like Lonergan and Higgins let alone answer an email from them.

Also where are we having this? For 1 group, 2nd round and a quarter, it will be at 1 stadium because they wont want the cost of setting up 2 stadiums across this side of the river. Going to host that where? Show me a football pitch (read: RECTANGULAR stadium) in Auckland, which is the most obvious place because of population and diversity. We have the dogs breakfast that is Eden Park. FIFA will not give 2 fudges about RMA (lighting and noise etc) I can tell you right now. How is the infrastructure in and out of Eden Park as Tegal said? Yes this will be in 10 or so years at the earliest but at the moment, we can't even raid a piggy bank to find cash to build Lens toy train set and Auckland council is almost bankrupt (and most certainly morally bankrupt). The government have made it clear that Auckland transport of that nature, is not a priority too.

This has so much pie in the sky going on and very little founded in reality that I really cannot believe this is getting air time.

Now if we had a waterfront stadium with no RMA and a massive transport hub over the road, then a lot of problems are solved very quickly. Such a short sighted pity.

Getting a WC in Africa was a big push, also the dodge vote for the '06 WC with Charlie Dempsey which probably would have seen the WC in '06 going to SA saw them basically given the WC in '10. 

A group or two in NZ is not that crazy, ~40k for stadiums. Eden Park is there already. Lets see what happens in Chch. Could be Akl, Wgtn, Chch with Wgtn the only major refurb. If it is one group and a couple of knock out games we could handle that. After the Qatar (middle east) and Russia (eastern europe) WCs there are not many areas left the WC hasn't been too.

There is are very good reasons it has not been to many places. 

Just wishing it to happen will not make it so. 

Aside from all the infrastructure problems, the timezone in NZ and Australia is just wrong for the sports major markets

Infrastructure problems - compare that to SA; NZ and especially Aus are superior. WC been to N and S America, W and E Europe, Africa, W and E Asia. Could argue W Africa and Oceania only major regions not to host. Yes, an issue regarding timezone and revenue, but if that was the criteria for WCs they would be held in the USA/Europe every time. I think we can handle 8 games. 

Guess we will agree to disagree.

When the Gummint come knocking for $50m or so just for a bid the response will make the furore over the Americas Cup money seem like a playground argument

This

To the point above that, how much was spent in Brazil to get stadiums for WC 2014. I understood it to be about $12b. As a shared host with 1 group, there would need to be some a decent amount of work done to Eden Park and around it for it to be acceptable to FIFA I suspect. It might tick the box for smaller tournaments but for the biggest sporting event on the planet, Eden Park is horse.

I think the public's attitude towards this would be way more favourable than towards more Americas Cup funding

A rugby world cup, perhaps yes. A sissy soccer tournament...? Come on.... Did you forget what country you are in? There is no way that most rugby folk will ever stomach public money in for a soccer tournament. They will argue that if you can put $15m in a bid for that, then Rugby should get $150m invested each and every year.

hmm actually disagree, I think a lot of the public would be very excited by the prospect of the worlds biggest tournament coming to NZ and would be happy for the government to spend some money on it (though the backlash if the bid failed would be massive). 

Doesn't mean it'll happen. 

I think Kiwis got a good taste of hosting with the RWC and would be more inclined towards this now because of that experience. 

Esp as I said, compared to the Amer Cup again.

I dont think that many see it as a "sissy" game anymore. Think you are outdated there

I completely disagree. We are in the community so do not view it that way. Remember the football population is small and I think pretty much all my friends that are not involved with football view it that way. Usually its around that ideal that players are soft and that well he got kicked in that ankle, rolled around 5 times holding his head, got some miracle water and is now tip top again so yeah, I do think it is viewed that way by people outside of football.

The difference is to mount a succesful bid we would probably (even in conjunction with Australia) have to spend more than we did for the entire CWC and RWC just for the Bid.

I think you're putting one minority up against another slightly bigger minority and forgetting about the majority of people in between. The public would get behind a football World Cup in NZ. 

You may possibly be right Tegal but this is where I slap myself and go 'its not going to happen anyway, so why am I arguing the toss'

If NZ gets 8 games, Eden Park would host 4 (maybe 5). At 50k it meets the current min criteria for stadia of around 40k and is fine for up to a 2nd rd, possibly a QF game. If FIFA don't mind the temp seating used for the RWC then 60k is in the sweet spot for QFs (even close to SF territory). The other venues are more an issue, not sure what the plans are in Chch and then there is Westpac... You are also comparing developing nations, SA and Brazil, that had / still have little infrastructure and needed large outlays to build public transport, hotels and stadia. It would be a smaller operation in Akl than was the case during the RWC, though part of a much larger operation of the WC as a whole. 

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

The percentage of the population who are European Neanderthals like that has diminished somewhat though...

The ethnic mix in NZ has changed so much, especially in Auckland where the last census showed only 59% of Auckland region people identified as "European" while 39% of Aucklanders were born overseas.

And of the overseas born population, most are now from Asia rather than the previous sources of the Pacific and the UK who now only rank second and third in Auckland. 

23% of Aucklanders identify as Asian and most don't have a prejudice against football, many being keen on it, even if most are apathetic.

More than one million NZ residents were born overseas - not much less than a quarter of our population.

And most of them from countries where football is popular.

(256,000 of those are from the UK, with the majority of the rest being Asian.) 

Noone seriously believes the World Cup would come to Australia/NZ before it goes back to Europe and the US first?

Yeah, maybe not 2026 but 2030? Does anyone know what the bidding process is even yet? Last one was concurrent for both 2018 and 2022.

Russia is in Europe - or likes to think it is.

China and India will be well ahead of Oceania and a far flung corner of Asia in FIFA's thinking 

Apparently Mexico, Canada, the USA and Colombia have expressed interest in bidding for the 2026 World Cup.

For sure, after the unpopular Qatar choice, it will almost certainly go to CONCACAF or possibly another Asian host, followed by South America again.

Australia and NZ could bid to host it in their "Oceania Eco Bubble" under the sea in 2054 post the Global Warming Annihilations of the 2040's which eliminate most of the planet.... 

They owe us a favour -