By David Owen
November 25 – A World Cup in Australia would offer FIFA and its partners “huge economic and financial opportunities”, the country’s bid has claimed, as the contest for the 2022 World Cup turned into a statistical battleground.
With little more than a week to go before the critical vote on December 2, both Australia and Qatar have sought to bolster their respective cases with a litany of facts and figures prepared by respected names from the lofty world of business consultancy.
While Qatar turned to Grant Thornton, Australia released the fruits of research by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and LEK.
Both countries, along with the United States, remain among the favourites to win the 2022 race.
This is although FIFA inspectors last week appeared to deal a blow to Qatar’s bid, branding plans to play the competition there in June and July as “a potential health risk”.
A 15-page presentation commissioned by Australia seeks to underline the degree of “untapped potential” in Asian broadcasting rights, suggesting that they could quintuple to $1.9 billion if certain not particularly outlandish assumptions are fulfilled.
The study also argues that upside opportunity for TV audiences is greatest when the World Cup is held in Asia.
In spite of time zone differences, Asia was in any case by far the largest regional television audience, with a cumulative viewing figure of close to nine billion, for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
According to Ben Buckley, chief executive of Football Federation Australia: “By 2022 gross domestic product in Asia is expected to be twice as great as that in Europe or North America.”
He said that Australia’s main trading partners were Japan, China, Korea and India – “and as such we are very much aligned with the region’s future growth”.
Buckley went on: “By bringing the World Cup to Asia and the wider Australasian region, FIFA will have the opportunity to share in this growth, while the expected revenues highlighted by the research would allow FIFA to make further significant investments in the game’s development across the world.
“We welcome the positive evaluation of our bid as published last week by FIFA, and while football’s world governing body is preparing to make its decision, we invite members of the Executive Committee to consider the potential that a World Cup in Australia offers in terms of football development and commercial success.”
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