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Waking the Sleeping Giant by Matt Harrington, Radio Sport 927 May 22, 2002 A quick soccer pop quiz We will start with an easy one. Australia lost to who in its two-leg play-off for a berth in the World Cup last year?…..Uruguay I hear you say, that is correct. Question two. Who won the FA Cup, and the English Premier League title last week? …Arsenal. Good, but they have been easy, just general knowledge,something everybody knows. Let's get tough then. Name a Socceroo squad member, who is based in Australia? Pass. Okay something a little easier. Who won the National Soccer League Grand Final at the weekend? United who? You don't know do you? It's unbelievable, but a majority, actually more than a majority, of Australians had no idea that the Olympic Sharks defeated Perth Glory at the weekend. I hear you mumble, who cares about national soccer? Well it's obvious we don't, and this is the underlining factor as to why we will be watching an Australia-less World Cup again. We are the same people, who set our alarms and got up early to watch Australia crumble against Uruguay, then vowed that it'll be our time at the next World Cup. However, unless we start taking an interest in soccer in our own back yard, we have no hope of making the greatest show on earth. Why don't we care? Maybe because the NSL is hard to watch with no real genuine world stars, while free-to-air and pay-tv has an over exposure of the world best club football. Our players ship-off overseas at the first site of potential, and how could you blame them. If they want to make it big, they have to play elsewhere. Australia is like any country, we love watching the best. Massive crowds flock to any international sporting contest we hold, we love sport. We even love playing. But when it comes to a sub-standard contest, we don't watch. And until Australian soccer improves dramatically, the general public will stay un-interested until the late stages of World Cup qualifying, again. Australia is lucky to have such a diverse range of sports. We have AFL, Basketball, Cricket, Athletics, Swimming and Soccer. But that's our main problem, Soccer doesn't rank that highly. Compare us to a European or South American nation. Over there soccer (football) is a religion. The game is held in such high regard that kids have two choices, soccer or soccer. Club football in other countries spend millions of dollars a season, they play in front of packed crowds. Here we can only dream of such luxury. Australia soccer needs to find a way to fast track the game here, and have kids growing up wanting to play soccer. Understandably we'll never have a league to rival Serie A or the Premier League, but what if we were to join an Asian League? I'm sure the general sporting public would become interested if Australia fielded two or three teams in an Asian league. Maybe New Zealand could join too and set up a Oceania/Asian Super League? Okay, I can hear the critics lining up to pick holes in this idea, but can you come up with a better way to improve the game in our country? We could keep the NSL, as a youth feeder competition, and limit expenditure. By rolling our top local talent into to two or three teams, and signing one or two international stars the concept could grow. Pay TV rights could be sold not only at home, but into the Asian market, and imagine the exposure sponsors would get? It may only take one marquee player, per team in the beginning, for the Aussie teams to be competitive against the wealthy Asian clubs. It would at least be a start. It's possible that this competition could lead Australian soccer into a power through the 21st century, and with a strong league based in the region, FIFA might even give the Oceania group winner, direct entry into future World Cups. Then the sleeping giant can awake. Balls and All.....this month • The Greatest Show on Earth Matt Harrington, 23 May 2002 • Mind Games Matt Harrington, 23 May 2002 • Racing's New Frontier Matt Harrington, 23 May 2002 • Defining Moment Matt Harrington, 23 May 2002 • The Sleeping Giant Matt Harrington, 23 May 2002 • Unfulfilled Potential Matt Harrington, 21 May 2002 • Time To Act Matt Harrington, 16 May 2002 • Football, Witchcraft and Flying Saucers Matt Harrington, 9 May 2002 • Changing Dimensions Matt Harrington, 3 May 2002 | |||
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