Jacinda Ardern could be the key to our football future

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern considered a 'secret weapon' in support of the joint Australia/New Zealand World Cup bid.

In the June edition of PLAY ON e-magazine, we have gone with the somewhat different cover image of New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.

Why?

The 2023 World Cup Bid.

There are reasons to point out the shortcomings of the bidding process for the tournament, although this time around, none of the shortcomings are anywhere near as egregious as those surrounding the 2018/2022 World Cup contest. But getting stuck into FIFA is a topic for another day!

At the time of writing, we are a little under two weeks away from knowing the hosts of the tournament, with the combined bid of Australia and New Zealand now rated as the hot favourites after the bid evaluation report was released on Wednesday.

The bid evaluation gave Australia a score of 4.1 (from 5), up against Japan with 3.9 and Colombia with a little over a pass mark of 2.8.

Importantly, the bid evaluation is rated highly on the commercial criterion, which is in stark contrast to how Australia – then going it alone – was rated as a commercial proposition for the 2022 World Cup.

In what is now a three-way contest, we’ve got the best chance we will probably ever have of hosting a World Cup, not least because of the inclusion of New Zealand which remains part of the Oceania Football Confederation. Getting together with New Zealand is the most efficient and cost-effective way to host a 32-team tournament, as some of us urged then FFA Chairman, Frank Lowy, to do more than 12 years ago in relation to 2018/2022. The men’s tournament is lost to us in the lifetime of most people reading this as it involves 48 teams from 2026 onwards, something we simply do not have the capacity to do.

A joint tournament is also a neat way for FIFA to reward Oceania with a major tournament which it would not otherwise be able to host on its own. I wrote about this some time ago here, and also made mention in my book about FIFA’s ‘guilty feeling’ when it comes to Oceania.

Let’s hope that sense of guilt prevails amongst FIFA decision-makers.

Both countries can also point to our outstanding records on managing the coronavirus pandemic – not that it is a criterion specifically, but it is relevant to safety and security, and access to health care, both of which are important factors.

But the “icing on the cake” of the joint bid, as described to me by one well-placed FIFA insider earlier this week, is none other than New Zealand’s super cool, super competent, super mum Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who is likely to be re-elected at the New Zealand general election later this year. The insider said: “Make her front-and-centre of any final pitch to voters and leave your macho, refugee-hating, male politicians out of it!”. Ouch.

So here's to Prime Minister Ardern! If she is what will tip the 37 FIFA voters our way, then we'll take it.

While we don't agree with the notion that a World Cup on home soil would “turbo-boost” the game – and, indeed football in Australia is littered with previous attempts at one-off sugar hits designed to turbo-boost – it nonetheless brings significant benefits for the sport, for players and for Australia and New Zealand.

It also helps lay a platform for a much rosier future for football locally than the one currently facing FFA CEO James Johnson.

In fact, those elements of corporate Australia who have gone cold on football in Australia at the moment may well regret their haste in exiting. Imagine not being part of our game if we are fortunate enough to host the World Cup – the 2019 edition of which was watched by a cumulative total of 1 billion people. Oops to those sponsors and broadcasters.

'Football Futures' is the theme of this month's PLAY ON e-magazine. Yet again our contributors do not fail to entertain with their individual slant on such a broad topic.

Top of mind for many Australian football fans is exactly how are we going to get out of the situation we’re in – some of it beyond our control (e.g. coronavirus shutdown), but much of it within our control.

There are three different takes on this with Matthew Galea setting some parameters for a re-set Football 3.0, Stuart Thomas channelling his inner fortune-teller by fast-forwarding to the final of the Australian Premier League First Division match between Canberra Capitals and Tassie Tigers in 2035, and journalist-author-historian Trevor Thompson reminding us that not only have we been here before, but we’ve been dreamin’ before, and we’ve got it all wrong before. Ouch again.

There’s a look at some local on-the-park issues with five ‘top guns’ from the Joeys via Ben Somerford and a long look at the why and wherefore of integrating futsal into the local football curriculum by Chris Curulli.

Our overseas contingent of George White, Chris King, Sally Freedman and Michael Renouf look at how Liverpool has set a template for long-term strategy in the Premier League, the inevitable advance of eSports, how a bit of an emotional intelligence might be an essential part of the ‘new normal’ when football starts, and “what if …” World Cup players had to play in their home country the season before the tournament?

Finally, we have contributions from Clement Tito and Rose Calvert on different aspects of the women’s game, which is on the brink of really taking off. Clement looks at how difficult it is to get female coaches, while Rose profiles three players from different generations who all hail from Far North Queensland.

Have a read of it for yourself. It's available from Fair Play Publishing as a PDF, or find it on the App Store (search for 'Fair Play Play On').

And #GoJacinda.