A-League problems will not affect Australian World Cup bid claims Buckley

April 11 – Football Federation Australia (FFA) chief executive Ben Buckley (pictured) has dismissed fears the current turmoil surrounding the A-League will damage the country’s bid to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cup.

Gold Coast United joined fellow expansion club North Queensland Fury on the list of A-League franchises facing uncertain futures on Friday – the same day competition boss Archie Fraser quit his post.

Fraser, who has worked for FFA for more than a year, decided to quit because he has been commuting between Sydney and his family home on the Gold Coast and has undertaken extensive travel with his position.

But Buckley said the sport in Australia had a “positive story”, and denied the issues surrounding the A-League would hurt the World Cup campaign.

“If you look right across the world and football in many parts of the world suffer the same sort of issues that we do on a local and domestic basis,” Buckley said in Sydney.

“Whether that’s clubs who are in financial difficulty, finding ways to increase crowds, increase the marketing profile of competitions, we’re not unique to those challenges.

“Many, many countries, even some that are bidding, face those challenges.”

Australia and the United States are rated the front-runners to host the 2022 World Cup.

Australia’s bid book – the blueprint for how the nation would host a World Cup – is due on May 14 and the final decision on which nations will host the 2018 and 2022 tournaments will be made by FIFA at a meeting in Zurich on December 2.

Buckley said the contentious issues of stadium availability and obtaining the cooperation of Australia’s other football codes were being addressed.

“We’re inches away,” he said.

“We’re getting very close.

“We’ve had a lot of very positive momentum in the last few weeks, assisted by the Government task force.

“We’ve worked closely with the task force and the other codes to address some of the issues that we have had.

“But we’re getting very close to having a fantastic document to put forward to FIFA.”