The World Cup is the Icing, but the A-League is the Rest of the Cake

Australia may have qualified for World Cup 2006, but as Phill Chadwick reports there
is still work ahead for Football to capitalise on this opportunity.

Like most of us, I was at home last Wednesday night to watch Australia qualify for the World Cup Finals.

My throat is still sore from screaming at the TV. It is an immense achievement and completely worthy of all of the excitement and hype that has been said and written over the past few days.

But it is not everything.

In past World Cup campaigns, it is fair to say that qualification for the World Cup finals was the only thing going for football in this country. When we tried repeatedly and failed repeatedly, those failures cut deep, almost fatally, into the game in this country. Why? Because there was nothing else to excite the fans.

And there was nothing else on offer to recruit new fans. And so for 30 years or more, football in Australia was the poor cousin of the major codes.

When World Cup qualification eluded us, time after time, the sporting community's opinion that Australia was a world minnow in the sport was confirmed. The football faithful looked overseas to the European leagues for quality football and the rest went smugly back to the AFL and the NRL, their prejudice convincingly confirmed. Hardly anyone took much notice of the NSL, or of the local state leagues.

In those times, qualification for the World Cup was the foundation on which the future of football in Australia was to be built. That, I am glad to say, is no longer the case.

Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that Germany06 will be anything but an immense boost to the game. It will. But, unlike previously, it will not be everything. It will be the icing, but the A-League is the rest of the cake.

The promotional and financial opportunities created by the World Cup campaign will be tremendously beneficial. And, as never before, that benefit has an already viable base to build on.

Apart from the New Zealand Knights, the A-League is already showing signs of long term success. We are now more than half way through the season and crowds are averaging more than 11,000. If we only count games played on Australian soil, the average rises to over 12,000. That is reasonably significant, even in world terms, ranking somewere between The Championship and League 1 in England, and certainly higher than France Ligue 2, for example.

My point is that Australia's foray into World Cup football this time becomes a bonus, rather than the whole thing. Frank Lowy and John O'Neil have certainly built a solid foundation for the future. The timing could not have been better.

But beware! Those of us interested in promoting the game to its rightful place at the top of the sporting pile in this country must not make the mistake of thinking that Germany06 will do the work for us. All football fans should use the high profile now provided by the national team as an opportunity to promote the local game. Millions of Australians have glimpsed for the first time the glamour, excitement and passion that is in our game. Let's not waste it.

The worst attitude to take would be to assume that football's ascendency is now assured by the mere fact of qualification, and to relax.

On the contrary. Now is the time for concerted efforts to leverage the World Cup profile into the A-League. Sniping at other codes, arrogance and hubris will surely backfire. Do not underestimate the emotional hold that AFL has in the Southern States and NRL has in the Eastern States. That hold will take time and effort to overcome and our success or otherwise in next year's tournament will not be the be-all and end-all of the job.

Like guests at a birthday party, let's not be distracted by the pretty icing of Germany06. Lets all remember the whole of the cake that is football in this country.

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