MCG-FIFA World Cup Bid 2018/2022

[Chuq]

I see the usual anti Melbourne dicks are still at it. The anti Melbourne sentiment on this forum and in particular anything to do with the WC bid for 18 and 22 is just disgraceful.

I was 100% behind the MCG being the WC final host, no questions asked. Capacity second to none, and assumed minor redevelopment to make rectangular viewing better would be no problem. There was no other place for the final in my eyes....

Up until the first week of December last year, where the AFL came out all guns blazing, the Herald Sun complicity supported them, the Vic Govt was completely silent ... and then the NSW Government came out with their 90k-with-glass-roof plan for Stadium Australia.

Complete 180 deg turnaround for me - nothing to do with anti or pro Melbourne or Sydney, but because of the attitude of the states' sporting bodies, media and government towards the bid. "Footy saved from World Cup". Keep your footy.

The only thing I will say is that a lot of the vox pops and opinion polls have shown the Victorian people's view on the WC do not align with the AFL. One the Herald Sun did a couple of weeks ago of five people showed all five were happy to give up the AFL for a month if it meant hosting the World Cup.

[Egan]

Yob's not even baiting the Victorians and the flame wars are popping up all over the place...

Amaru - Get over yourself, if you don't like this forum get stuffed. You are a Victorian, you shouldn't care about half the sh*t that is said on this forum if you truly think your city is absolutely amazing.

Get a punching bag and punch it, get over your rage of anyone dare criticising Victoria.

[Amaru]

Yob's not even baiting the Victorians and the flame wars are popping up all over the place...

Amaru - Get over yourself, if you don't like this forum get stuffed. You are a Victorian, you shouldn't care about half the sh*t that is said on this forum if you truly think your city is absolutely amazing.

Get a punching bag and punch it, get over your rage of anyone dare criticising Victoria.

Piss off idiot, don't tell me what to do. The Melbourne bashing isn't just limited to the WC bid. There is anti Melbourne stuff in several of the threads here, it is disgraceful.

So here is a bit of a payback. What it comes down to is pure jealousy. You fuckers are jealous of Melbourne. Sydney is jealous because it knows Melbourne is overtaking it slowly but surely and we constantly see now Sydney trying to challenge Melbourne, eg it wants the grand prix, it wants the Australian Open, it wants its casino to be bigger than Melbourne's, it wants it's horse race to be bigger than the Melbourne Cup, it wants to be a better known shopping destination than Melbourne, f**k me, it even wanted to host the Essendon Collingwood ANZAC day match. A Melbourne f***ing wannabe that's what Shitney is. Brisbane is jealous because no matter how quickly it is growing, Melbourne is growing quicker. Brisbane grows by 1,300 people per week, Melbourne grows by 1,500 per week. Even in actual numbers for both states, I read that Victoria as a whole outgrew QLD as a whole the last financial year so Brisbane and QLD is neither here nor there, not the biggest, not the smallest, stuck in the middle like Jane Brady. Adelaide is jealous because all it can do is produce yobs, and it is such a shithole, these yobs end up leaving Adelaide because the lifestyle there is akin to a dog chilling in his kennel: it's hot, it's small, it stinks, not much to do and the locals are lazy fucks. Perth is jealous because it's in woop woop land.

Don't kid yourselves jackasses, Melbourne is the future, it will be Australia's biggest city, and with it, all the hoo haa that goes along with boating about being truly international, it has the biggest stadium and the Victorian government is cashed up. So talk up your sh*t all you like scumbags, dollars will speak alot louder than you when FIFA, the Vic Govt and the NSW Govt sit down to talk turkey about who will get the final...assuming Aust wins the bid of course.

[Simmo79]

Melbourne is clearly not good enough to host a WC Final. It's an honour that belongs to famous cities, not little brothers with chips on their shoulders.

[/thread]

[Jeffles]

Like Yokohama and Pasadena.

[Simmo79]

yeah mean Tokyo and LA, then Yes.

[deejaybee]

It could be argued that New York was more deserving of the `94 final than LA as it is more 'international' ( )

There is a thread dedicated to whingeing about the final, find it.

Back onto MCG redevelopment, it seems that a constraint of expanding the GSS side of the ground is the railway lines to the south of the stadium as well as Brunton Ave. The concourse outside the stadium already sits partially on top of the road, making it an engineering challenge for any new stand to be erected.

[logan96]

And Gyfox, you sound like a f***ing broken record with this most registered players crap. Who cares? It does not equate to decent crowds in the A-League. Syd's crowds are embarrasing to say the least. As Australia's biggest city, which apparently according to the stats it won't be for too much longer, Syd should be selling out it's home games. But suffice to say, it's getting that bad for them that soon they will have to play their home games at a park so the dwindling
crowds can park their cars around the pitch and honk their horns when a goal is scored. Absolute amatuerism.

30 Australians in the Socceroos squad and 17 of them New South Welshman. Guess that says it all.

exactly....sydney and NSW also has the most juniors and the most clubs by a long way too. You can judge support for football in this country in so many other ways other than A league crowds.

[deejaybee]

Actually attendances are as good a way to judge support than participation numbers. Just because Victoria has 1/5 of the number of registered players compared with NSW (its not even in percentage terms FFS) does not reflect the non-playing supporters. Even the crowds at VPL matches are strong, Preston Lions were getting ~5000 every match a few years ago before they had to reduce their spending and were relegated.
I'll bet that there is at least three dedicated followers to every player in Victoria. And the growth rate among the amount of players themselves is fantastic but has been hampered by the amount of funding and shortage of grounds.
The rate of non-playing supporters is as much of an indicator than the rate of players themselves. Actually it is arguably more important, as the majority of players are kids who are financially dependent.

You should see the amount of grounds that 10 years ago were housing aussie rules clubs and pitches that are now football clubs. The AFL isn't expanding for world domination, is expanding because it has to.

[bazza]

And Gyfox, you sound like a f***ing broken record with this most registered players crap. Who cares? It does not equate to decent crowds in the A-League. Syd's crowds are embarrasing to say the least. As Australia's biggest city, which apparently according to the stats it won't be for too much longer, Syd should be selling out it's home games. But suffice to say, it's getting that bad for them that soon they will have to play their home games at a park so the dwindling
crowds can park their cars around the pitch and honk their horns when a goal is scored. Absolute amatuerism.

30 Australians in the Socceroos squad and 17 of them New South Welshman. Guess that says it all.

Victorians struggle enough trying to play a sport that they made up - give them a break on anything else

[Amaru]

And Gyfox, you sound like a f***ing broken record with this most registered players crap. Who cares? It does not equate to decent crowds in the A-League. Syd's crowds are embarrasing to say the least. As Australia's biggest city, which apparently according to the stats it won't be for too much longer, Syd should be selling out it's home games. But suffice to say, it's getting that bad for them that soon they will have to play their home games at a park so the dwindling
crowds can park their cars around the pitch and honk their horns when a goal is scored. Absolute amatuerism.

30 Australians in the Socceroos squad and 17 of them New South Welshman. Guess that says it all.

exactly....sydney and NSW also has the most juniors and the most clubs by a long way too. You can judge support for football in this country in so many other ways other than A league crowds.

There is nothing exactly about it. People who play the sport get rewarded by participating. There players get their chance by being able to be selected to play representative football, heck, maybe even represent Australia at a World Cup. What we are talking about is attendance, fans who turn up to the games to watch other people who have been rewarded for their grass roots participation. It seems that if you are going to reward a set of fans for showing the way in Australia's premier event, then you would be wanting to reward the Victorian fans. surely. And if not, why not? Why reward the Sydney fans when they don't even turn up to the A-League?

[Jeffles]

Because we rock!

A League crowds and local participation may not even be in the administrator's mind when they select the final. It will come down to dollars, facilities and amenities.

[gyfox]

Actually it will come down to the venue that FIFA believes will give the spectators and TV viewers the best experience of the game. The difference in dollars between an 83k and 88k saleable venue is insignificant when you think that Broadcast Rights, Partnership agreements and other sponsorship for the 4 year Cup cycle bring in $4B to FIFA. At $600 a ticket it represents only 0.075% of FIFA's income from the Cup. This is one of the reasons FIFA had no qualms at all in ordering Brazil to reduce the capacity of the Maracana from 87.5K to 82k for Brazil 2014.

[gyfox]

Actually attendances are as good a way to judge support than participation numbers. Just because Victoria has 1/5 of the number of registered players compared with NSW (its not even in percentage terms FFS) does not reflect the non-playing supporters.

When you take population into account the rate of registered players in NSW is 4 times that of Victoria and Sydney 4 times that of Melbourne.

The great thing in that in Victoria since the 2006 World Cup and the establishment of Victory the number of players has gone up by 50%. Surprising to me is that growth rate is faster in the country than in Melbourne. I would be interested to know if you could highlight any factors that is pushing it this way. Maybe its just a cyclical thing with different areas within a state having bursts of growth at different times just because they do. 2009 saw the growth in player registrations level off.

Lets hope there is a similar spurt of growth post South Africa and with the start up of Heart providing more heroes for young kids to try to emulate.

[Spirit of Santos]

With NSW and Victoria Football participation numbers, one has to consider that the difference is probably down to Rugby League vs Aussie Rules.

League is a lot more taxing on the body then AFL, hence a lot of mothers in NSW will make their kids play Football instead. Even for kids who do play RL they are more likely to switch to Football as adults as it's frankly the more sensible option for a weekend pastime.

This doesn't exist to the same extent in Victoria with Aussie Rules, so that sport attracts more players both child and adult. If Rugby League was the number one sport in Victoria, I'd expect the player numbers for Football would be comparable to NSW.