RichardB wrote:Paphitis wrote:RichardB wrote:Maybe GB and Cyprus were the ones that voted fairly as the women's world Cup has yet to be hosted by a South American nation. I see that China has hosted the finals twice... Maybe the Aussies voted for those and the Chinese returned the favour?
True. That could be real.
Australia probably did vote for the Chy-nese bids and maybe the Chy-nese FA has a good relationship with the Australian FA and are returning the favour. Not an unreasonable scenario at all.
Yes, Columbia have never hosted, but neither have Australia and NZ. Australia is what I call a developing soccer nation with the sport gaining ground year after year. It isn't impossible that in a decade or 2 from now, Soccer will be the most popular spectator sport which makes Australia World Cup bid loss a few years ago a major blow for the sport on this continent. The men's World Cup in Australia would have been a catalyst for Australia but sadly, the QATAR bid was proven to be rigged. Australia's World Cup bid cost the Australian FA $55 million. They plan to bid again, despite all the negativity about FIFA corruption.
If soccer becomes the most popular sport in Australia, then the Australian Football league (A League) will be destined to be one of the best leagues in the world, worth several hundreds of millions of dollars, because Australians back their teams financially, buy memberships and because sport in Australia is highly corporatized.
The Women's World cup will also bring about progress but obviously not anywhere near as much as the Men's tournament. Australians by their nature are quite sports mad, so will jump to watch any major event such as a Soccer World Cup. And once they come once, they get hooked and take a more active interest.
But given that Australia hasn't hosted a world cup before, it surely places us as the exact same boat as Columbia (at least for the Women's sport).
As a result, I would have thought that Australia's Stadia, clean and peaceful cities, and success in containing Chy-na Virus, should ordinarily be the vote clincher and attract the Cypriot and UK votes.
I certainly wouldn't disagree with your synopsis here Paphitis and would definitely agree with you re the Qatari bid.
As you say neither nation has hosted a world Cup before but as to why Cyprus and the GB voted for Columbia and not Australia, I don't think its anything sinister. I reckon they just judged each bid on its merits. Or as I'm sure we realise a lot of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" goes on during these bids.
Hey maybe its revenge for your lot giving us null points in the euro vision song contest. (what's that about anyway??? are you Aussies wannabe Europeans or what??)
Anyway you won the bid so from your point of view alls well that ends well.
Didn't watch it. But you are right. Australia's participation in Eurovision doesn't make sense to me.
We have a TV Network here called SBS. It's State Run along with the ABC. They have some rather strange ideas.
But having said that, a couple of years ago Australia had a great song from an Asian Singer (i can't remember the name). I thought Australia should have won it that year. but then what? Eurovision being hosted in Australia? that would be very strange.
