Soccerphile Editorial - October 2012
2015 Asian Cup
The Preliminary Draw for the 2015 Asian Cup was made at a ceremony in Melbourne on October 9. The draw slotted 20 Asian sides into five different groups for the right to qualify for the Asian Cup finals to be held in Australia in three years' time. Head of the organising committee Michael Brown called the tournament "the biggest football event that will ever be held in this country," but doubts remain as to the genuine level of interest in Asian football in Australia.
Australia joined the AFC in 2006 in part to ensure a more competitive World Cup qualifying route than the Oceania Confederation previously offered. But despite reaching the quarter-finals of the 2007 Asian Cup and the final in Qatar four years later, the Socceroos' performances in the continental competition have largely gone unappreciated.
To be fair the Socceroos haven't helped themselves. When defender Lucas Neill told the Australian media his side would go through the 2007 Asian Cup undefeated, he single-handedly hardened Asian resolve to beat a team considered by many confederation members to be little more than arrogant interlopers.
A hard lesson learned saw Australia slog its way through to the final in Doha four years later, where only a stunning extra-time winner from Japan striker Tadanari Lee halted the Socceroos' course. But the damage had been done - and not just in Asia. For many Australians bred on a diet of global success in sports played by only a handful of other countries, the inability to win the Asian Cup in either the first or second attempt has caused considerable confusion.
Football Federation Australia will hope it's a case of third time lucky on home soil but the main concern for tournament organisers should be in how to market the tournament to fans. And if the A-League's struggle to draw crowds is anything to go by, that could be problematic.
With many Australians generally reluctant to support their own national league there's a fear they may also stay away from the Asian Cup - particularly for matches featuring teams with little recognition down under. And despite sizeable Asian populations in every major Australian metropolis there has been little acknowledgement that they are rarely football-going communities, let alone ones interested in watching teams from outside their own cultural sphere.
The hope then is that Asian fans will travel to watch their national teams in action and in that regard Australia harbours an obvious selling a point. A major tourist destination, the country is regarded by many Asians as a safe, friendly place to visit and it's one in which international sporting events like the 2000 Olympic Games have already been successfully hosted.
However, of the four Asian Cup tournaments played this century, only one regularly attracted five-figure crowds. The 2004 Asian Cup in China benefited from the host nation's unexpected run to the final and the wave of nationalism it inspired. China's 3-1 defeat to Japan sparked riots in Beijing but was also the culmination of one of the best-attended tournaments in Asian Cup history.
Whether Australia - with its relatively small population of just 22 million - can prove a hit at the gates is questionable. One of the early criticisms of the tournament is that it's too concentrated on Australia's east coast, with matches set to take place in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. An obvious counterpoint is that neither Perth, nor Adelaide currently possess an international-standard rectangular stadium, but with the national team rarely venturing west of the Nullarbor the lack of Asian Cup action is another slight for those not based in the east.
Another issue is transport. While low-coast airlines now service the entire country, air travel is not an ideal means of transporting thousands of football fans at the height of an Australian summer. Nor is it helpful that the domestic A-League may need to break to accommodate a tournament which will also clash with the wildly popular Australian Open tennis tournament.
But perhaps the most significant problem is just how disinterested many Australians have proved to be when it comes to watching and understanding Asian football. Only Adelaide United have consistently drawn decent crowds in the AFC Champions League and that has tended to be on the back of lacklustre domestic campaigns. And judging by some of the early online comments posted in response to the Preliminary Draw, many Australians brought up on a steady diet of English Premier League struggle to even understand the concept of an Asian Cup, let alone show an interest in supporting it.
On the eve of the Australian government's submission of the results of an inquiry into Australian engagement in the so-called "Asian century," there's no doubt hosting an Asian Cup marks a significant step forward in Australia's relationship with its Asian neighbours. But there is still much work to be done if the tournament is to succeed, in what is shaping up to be a crucial marker in the chequered history of football in Australia.
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