From what I understand the South Americans have preasured FIFA into backing out of a deal with Oceania of which Australia and most of the south pacific is part of. Now the winner in our area of the world for the Qualifying rounds of the world cup must once again play the lucky loser from Sth America. Soccer was gaining a foothold within Australia but stuff ups such as this will see the world game loose our nation once again.

It's especially bad because the berth for Oceania was part of Sepp Blatter's, the President of FIFA, campaign last year. Now he is backing out because of one poor performance (by New Zealand at the Confederations Cup) and because of supposed "problems" within Soccer Australia.....

Seems like a country's individual past performance should make it more likely to get into the cup rather than the past performance of it's group. It's hard to imagine that happening as long as the current FIFA members want to improve their odds of getting in rather than improve the game.

I think Aussies definitely get a bum deal in the current arrangement.

We are not happy about this down under!!!!!!

Um, they're not out so much as not guaranteed an automatic spot, which really means Australia, right? At least FIFA is keeping the field at 32, instead of expanding to 36. At least today anyways!

Blatter's backtracking is craven political caving in at its worst. I think he whispered in the ear of the Oceania contingent: Support me for the FIFA presidency and I'll give you what you want. Now that he's president, he's not beholden to them anymore, so he can be pressured by the much more powerful South American federation.

Australia and NZ and all the little islands that make up the Oceania federation probably should folded in to the Asian federation anyways.

One plan was for the Socceroo's to be based in England so that all of their players wouldn't have to travel the insane distances in the middle of the club season just for a friendly against the Marshall Islands or whatever. I don't know what the status of that is. Soccer in Australia is like it is in the US, a minor sport overwhelmed by two behemoths, in the Aussie's case, AFL and cricket.

That Harry Kewell is good, though, isn't he? I really hope he stays with Leeds United and doesn't go to one of the Big Red Clubs.

[ July 01, 2003, 06:27 PM: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]

I hate to be mean to all the Australia soccer fans but they are pretty much being counted out by most people, mostly because they have lost qualifying playoffs for the past three World Cups.

Also, it's kind of stupid that UEFA (Europe) has so many spots in the World Cup. I mean, they may be playing the best soccer on the planet club-wise, but I think they could give up ONE spot so that Oceania has an automatic berth...

[ July 01, 2003, 07:49 PM: Message edited by: metromathis13 ]