Abu Dhabi: The Australian community and the Australian Ambassador to UAE and Qatar, Doug Trappett, and his staff came together on Sunday night to watch, not only their team in action, but also Nicole Kidman taking them through Come Play, an impressive TV presentation of their country's bid for the 2022 Fifa World Cup.
The 2018 and 2022 hosts will be announced on December 2 and Australia, who pulled out of the 2018 race earlier this week, is making a strong case for the 2022 event, with Qatar and Korea also in the fray. "Our bid mirrors the rising popularity of football in Australia. We first qualified for the World Cup finals in 1974 and now have made it to back-to-back events," said Trappett.
"We have some of our players playing the Premiership, Swiss and Turkish Leagues while nearly a million play football in Australia. It is the most popular game among the 1-14 year age group, while girls soccer has seen a 6 per cent increase annually over the last five years."
Highlighting Australia's track record in staging major international events, Trappett said: "We have hosted The Fifa World Youth Cup twice in 1993 and 1981. The Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the 2001 Goodwill Games (Brisbane), the 2003 Rugby World Cup, the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games and the 2009 World Masters Games (Sydney), the Cricket World Cup apart from major annual events like the Australian Open (the Grand Slam tennis tournament of the Asia-Pacific region), the Formula One Grand Prix and horse racing's Melbourne Cup."
A total of 10 host cities have been selected as part of the 2022 Bid under Australia's nationwide hosting proposal that will see matches in six states and territories if successful. "Australia is the bridge between Asia and Oceania" the Australian envoy said.
