by Tony Ising
Football Federation Australia has sacrificed one of its greatest assets - the Hyundai A-League - in a fruitless quest for football's Holy Grail, the right to host the World Cup Finals.
An 18 month bid process costing $50 million delivered a solitary vote from FIFA's executive committee of 22 in an embarrassing rebuke to Australian football.
You'd think the FFA would have learnt its lesson. Didn't we learn from Australia's demoralising World Cup exit at the hands of Iran in November 1997 that Australian football would be doomed if we continued to put all our eggs in the World Cup basket?
What Australian football actually needed back then - as now - was a credible, professional, national football league. In 2005, the dreams of Australian football fans came true as the Hyundai A-League was launched. No longer would we have to wait for the Socceroos to save us, only to have them fail and plunge the code into a depressing four-year hibernation.
We now had regular, high quality football to enjoy at the nation's best stadiums or live on TV along with bucket loads of credibility as a code.
Yet Football Federation Australia has again made the World Cup its primary focus - this time by chasing hosting rights - and in so doing has taken its eye off the A-League. Crowds are at an all-time low; expansion teams have added nothing to the league's gate or level of interest; and the visibility of the league through marketing and promotions is virtually non-existent.
History shows us that once a sport starts to lose its appeal in this country, negative momentum becomes a force almost impossible to resist. The old Australian Baseball League, the National Basketball League and even the old National Soccer League were all unable to arrest the slide once it set in.
It appears $50 million these days buys you a solitary vote at a FIFA congress. Imagine the benefit to Australian football if that money had instead been invested into the domestic league.
Of course many would argue that the $50 million was a worthwhile gamble - the benefits would have been almost immeasurable if the bid had succeeded. But what were the odds? We are talking about an organisation which let Australia flounder in the Oceania Football Confederation for decades with no prospect of a direct World Cup qualification berth. What made Frank Lowy and the team at FFA think FIFA would now suddenly hand us the keys to drive the event?
There's a popular story - which may be just urban myth - which claims AFL officials popped champagne corks in their corporate box at the MCG back on that fateful night in 1997. Australian football has once again given AFL administrators a reason to celebrate. Because once again, we've let the World Cup get in the way of what's really important - a vibrant national league that will itself inspire the next generation of Australian footballers and supporters.
Instead of chasing the Holy Grail, the FFA should instead focus on consolidation to regain its now-tarnished credibility and lost momentum. The only way it can achieve this is by working hard to ensure it does not let the A-League slide into an abyss from which it may never recover.
Tony Ising is a Communications Consultant who conceived Melbourne Victory Football Club in 1997 on the terraces of Optus Oval during a Carlton SC NSL match the weekend following Australia's World Cup exit to Iran.
This is the video that Australia could have won the World Cup bid with - http://tribalfootball.com/tribaltv/world-cup-bid-film-australia-should-have-presented
