Fifa rejects 'turbo-charged' Australia
Even with the combined antipodean might of a kangaroo with kleptomaniac tendencies, Paul Hogan, the Governor General, Elle Macpherson, Cathy Freeman and Hugh Jackman, Australia failed in its . In fact, even if it had packed a Qantas A380 with Kylie Minogue, Dame Edna Everidge, The Wiggles, Lillee and Thomson, Kath and Kim and Prime Minister Julia Gillard (who decided against making the trip to Zurich) it would not have made much difference. Australia mustered just a single vote from the Fifa executive committee and, like England, did not progress any further than the first round of voting.
As with England, nobody surely ever doubted that Australia would stage a magnificent tournament - that had to be a given after the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. What Fifa appeared to be rejecting was the economics of the bid (of all the applicants, Australia stood to generate the least revenue), along with the time difference (which would have been problematic for American and European viewers).
Above all, however, it seemed unimpressed with the galvanising idea behind Australia's bid: that it could "turbo-charge" football in the Asia-Pacific region.
From the mandatory aerial shots of Uluru, to the plane skimming over the Great Barrier Reef, much of the bid was boilerplate stuff. The kind of thing you would see in a Qantas in-flight video or a Tourism Australia advert. Australia also played on its happy-go-lucky image. "What we would like to do is invite you to bring the World Cup to the world's greatest playground," said Hugh Jackman as part of the video presentation. Again, predictable stuff.
Instead, the most interesting aspect of the Come Play! campaign was how Australia attempted to turn the old tyranny of distance idea on its head, and to place itself at the heart of the emergent world. As Julia Gillard pointed out in a radio interview ahead of the vote: by 2022, 75% of the world's population will be in "our region". Far from being remote, Australia stressed its centrality.
The centre of sporting gravity is certainly starting to shift, and Australian sports administrators are alert to it. Aggressively evangelical, Aussie Rules recently held an exhibition game in China between Melbourne and the Brisbane Lions. A Rugby Union Bledisloe Cup game between the Wallabies and the All Blacks always take place now in either Hong Kong or Tokyo. The Socceroos are now part of the Asia federation of Fifa rather than the Oceania Football Confederation.
The traditional sporting ties remain strong and unbreakable. Of course, Australia is currently celebrating - if that is the right word - its longstanding cricketing rivalry with England in the Ashes series. The Wallabies have just returned from their annual winter tour to Europe. But the failed Come Play! campaign was part of a shift, as Australian sport increasingly turns its gaze to Asia.
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