Adelaide has to build a NEW stadium for 2018/2022 World Cup

[Hooligan]

Well, coach Mike Holmgren left at the end of last year, and there's the recurrent injury problems for QB Matt Hasselback, the lack of a clear starting running back, and problems along the offensive line (especially at left tackle, where they lost two players to injuries). But ask any real Seahawk fan about the team's current problems and they will tell you that it all goes back to 2006, when they got cheated in the Superbowl by lousy refereeing. And that will be the reason for all of their bad seasons from that day onward.

I watched that superbowl, It was not long before that game i decided the Seahawks were my team, and they have just gone downwards since.

[Prince George]

I watched that superbowl, It was not long before that game i decided the Seahawks were my team, and they have just gone downwards since.

I feel your pain. I made the same mistake in '90 with the Buffalo Bills.

[Omicron]

I watched that superbowl, It was not long before that game i decided the Seahawks were my team, and they have just gone downwards since.

I feel your pain. I made the same mistake in '90 with the Buffalo Bills.

Oh my goodness; I haven't seen one of those in years, let alone eaten one!

[adam_stuckey]

Lowy outlines bid plans

Australia's prospects of winning the hosting rights for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup finals rely on the bid team convincing the FIFA executive that the country offers the best financial return for world football's governing body.

Speaking in Melbourne on Wednesday, Football Federation Australia (FFA) chairman Frank Lowy outlined the plans for convincing the 24-person FIFA executive, which will decide on who hosts both finals in December 2010, that a World Cup in Australia would provide a financial windfall.

While some have suggested Australia's location in the southern hemisphere would be detrimental to their hopes of hosting in 2018 following World Cups in South Africa and Brazil, Lowy said the proximity of Asia meant a strategic advantage and FIFA could take the game to a whole new audience.

"We are able to show that bringing the game to Australia and having the Asian continent in the same time zone, will benefit not only Australia, not only Asia, but the whole football world," he said.

"We are able to show FIFA that the income projected from television rights and other income will be larger than if they go anywhere else."

Lowy said that the business plan of trying to build a further market in Europe or North America was flawed and that Asia presented the best opportunity for the future development of the game financially.

"Europe is full of football, there is nowhere to go," Lowy added.

"The same thing applies in North America, but nobody can offer what we can offer. We are in the backyard of Asia, we know how to stage big events and the audience which is going to watch us is two thirds of the world audience.

"That of course can be translated to dollars and cents. I think Asia's development in sport is such that if the World Cup comes to this part of the world then we will be able to cash in."

Lowy has every confidence that Australia, given the reasons he outlined, is well-positioned to succeed in one of its bids.

"I am confident, I believe that we are entitled to one of the two World Cups, hopefully, 2018 and I'm confident that the 24 members of the FIFA executive will see it the same way," he said.

Lowy said the effect on the sport in Australia if a World Cup bid was successful would be 'nation-changing'.

He added: "The people of Australia want football badly. They want it to succeed, they want to come to matches on a regular basis. Their support for their Socceroos is just as amazing.

"Imagine what winning the right to host the World Cup would do for the game in Australia. The entire nation was spellbound by the Socceroos in the last World Cup in Germany. Imagine what it could be if it was all happening here at home.

"The decision on the 2018 and 2022 World Cup will be made in December next year and if we are successful for either one, we won't have to wait for the benefits to flow.

"From the moment Australia is announced as the host of the World Cup, the interest level in football here will go through the roof. This will be a nation-changing event."

I think it is a good point that not only are they breaking ground in Australia it will be close to perfect viewing time (and not bad travelling time) to most of asia which is where the future money certainly is

[adam_stuckey]

Forget turf wars - everyone will gain from Cup

Michael Cockerill


Clearly, it's going to get ugly before Australia's World Cup bid gets over its first significant hurdle. Commitments about infrastructure spending have to be made within the next couple of months, and the scaremongering is as premeditated as it is predictable.

The fact that all the football codes, plus cricket, will ultimately benefit from the facilities bonanza seems to be lost on those, including my colleague Richard Hinds, who seem interested only in fertilising their own turf.

Australian Rugby Union chief executive John O'Neill, who has a unique perspective, rightly describes the World Cup as ''nation building'' and has no doubt rugby union stands to gain more than it may lose.

For the benefit of Hinds, a few facts are worth noting. Since Frank Lowy took over in 2003, football has received about $77 million from the Federal government, of which $45m has been allocated to fund a World Cup bid which ultimately benefits all.

In roughly the same time, AFL has received about $453m from the three tiers of government - almost six times that received by football.

From the $77m it has received from Canberra for redevelopment work at the MCG, to the $28m it received for Skilled Stadium in Geelong, to a $5m grant to the South Australian AFL to develop community facilities, to $250,000 for developing AFL in the Kimberley, the sport has gained in every state, at every level. AFL remains, by a considerable distance, the most generously taxpayer-supported sport in the country.

Next best is cricket, which has received about $141m - still close to double that received by football during the same time. The money spent on new facilities at the SCG and Adelaide Oval also suits the AFL. Strange that. Behind football comes rugby league (about $45.5m), tennis (about $14.5m) and rugby union (about $9m). These are the facts.

It also cannot be disputed that until Lowy came along football was chronically underfunded. It suited the other sports to keep it that way. What better example than in the Illawarra, where Brandon Park - a ground built brick-by-brick by the local football community - was knocked down and Wollongong Wolves were effectively evicted in order to justify an upgrade of WIN Stadium, where the NRL was the major tenant. It was the beginning of the end for the Wolves, the two-time national champions, who no longer exist.

At the 2000 Olympic Games, football was again sold short by the politicians and the lobbyists. The money spent on the Gabba, where cricket and AFL co-habit, remains an especially sore point for football, which had been hoping for a new rectangular stadium in Brisbane instead.

What's changed is that football now has a patriarch who can pick up the phone and get put through to The Lodge. Lowy is a powerful man, with powerful connections well beyond these shores. Kevin Rudd is not, by nature, a sports lover, but he sees the big picture. Globally, a World Cup can give Australia a shot in the arm. Domestically, it can leave a legacy of infrastructure that benefits all sports, not just one.

It's a win-win, but typically some still refuse to see it that way. The AFL and NRL - not content with a $2 billion windfall of bricks and mortar - also want Rudd to financially compensate them for the disruption the World Cup will bring to their fixture list. How you quantify something that, at best, is going to happen nine years from now is anyone's guess. It's sheer audacity but, to be fair, it's the sort of brinkmanship which has worked in the past.

Ultimately, it will be Rudd who will have to stare down these sports, stare down the critics, and stare down the recalcitrants at state government level, to get the World Cup bid past the first, and perhaps most important, base. No stadiums, no World Cup. Funnily enough, that might not help the saboteurs as much as they might think.

What's changed is that football now has a patriarch who can pick up the phone and get put through to The Lodge. Lowy is a powerful man, with powerful connections well beyond these shores. Kevin Rudd is not, by nature, a sports lover, but he sees the big picture. Globally, a World Cup can give Australia a shot in the arm. Domestically, it can leave a legacy of infrastructure that benefits all sports, not just one.

It's a win-win, but typically some still refuse to see it that way. The AFL and NRL - not content with a $2 billion windfall of bricks and mortar - also want Rudd to financially compensate them for the disruption the World Cup will bring to their fixture list. How you quantify something that, at best, is going to happen nine years from now is anyone's guess. It's sheer audacity but, to be fair, it's the sort of brinkmanship which has worked in the past.

Ultimately, it will be Rudd who will have to stare down these sports, stare down the critics, and stare down the recalcitrants at state government level, to get the World Cup bid past the first, and perhaps most important, base. No stadiums, no World Cup. Funnily enough, that might not help the saboteurs as much as they might think.

A good story i thought anyone who was interested would want to read. I think one thing he probably forgot to mention was that AFL did put alot of their own money into alot of those developments so it wasn't all just hand outs from the Governments but considering the numbers that play football they are still seriously getting ripped off.

I really see the example of the GABBA being exactly the same as whats planned to happen here with Adelaide Oval