AFL concedes season could be lost to soccer World Cup

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AFL concedes season could be lost to soccer World Cup

Authored by: Michael Christiansen
on Monday, December 07 2009 @ 09:26 pm ACDT

The things that seems to have come out of today:
- The AFL DOES NOT intend shutting down for any more than 4 weeks,
- the AFL seems to prefer a negotiated outcome NOT excluding them from host cities (Melb in particular)
- with a 25 yr exclusivity deal at Docklands and a similar deal until 2037 at the MCG - the FFA, having stated it want's those venues MUST negotiate directly with the AFL and NOT the venues
- if push comes to shove, and the AFL dig in their heels - the ulitmate irony would be if the State Govt got involved via legislation to 'evict' the AFL from the MCG, because, back in 1984(ish), the then Cain Govt threatened legislation to dictate that the VFL GF must remain at the MCG. And used the back door route of denying approval for the VFL to expand VFL Park to 104,000 where the VFL/AFL would happily still be conducting their major business now and thus leaving the MCG for anyone else.....of course, we know that the current MCG configuration, entirely rebuilt since 1990, and costing about $576 million, only includes $77 mill of (state) Govt funds. The rest is MCC funds and incurred debt. And that is only possible because it hosts the AFL and therefore seeks to lock the AFL in for as long as possible.

Thus - it would be the ultimate insult and irony for a State Govt to seek to force the AFL out. Note that John Cain happens to be on the MCG Trust board still.

Note also - even back in '56 for the Olympics, the new Northern stand cost around 700K quid, and govt only put in 100K.

Seems the MCG, is one of the world most successful non publicly funded stadiums.

For a matter of scale - consider that Wembley Stadium claims to cater to over 1.5 million soccer/rugby fans annually. The MCG caters to around 3million AFL fans annually, before any cricket and other events attendees are factored in. The MCG is one serious stadium, don't let anyone claim it's a back water venue for a nothing code.

AFL concedes season could be lost to soccer World Cup

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Monday, December 07 2009 @ 10:03 pm ACDT

Interesting stuff Mick - I wasn't aware of the full details regarding VFL Park. I knew it was designed to expand to 100,000+ but didn't know about the politics.

I imagine most likely an agreement will be reached, which will mean the AFL have to vacate for 8 weeks, and the Federal Government will offer a carrot (to bankroll some lost revenue and support some other programs) and a stick (it won't withdraw support for other programs and won't withdraw the likely part funding for stadiums in places like Adelaide and Perth).

The key is whether FIFA would allow concessions like the AFL continuing in Melbourne for a partial overlap, and whether the true downtime for the MCG would be 4 weeks, 8 weeks or 16 weeks. Though I could imagine it being promised as 16 weeks and a very shoddy surface being available for finals.

Some reports have England favourite to host 2018 and some had Australia as a favourite for 2022. I suspect it's way too early to have any real idea.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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