Dubai: Next year’s AFC Asian Cup hosts Australia will be on hand to offer their expertise to the UAE if the Emirates’ bid to host the 2019 edition of the tournament is successful.
That was the message from officials on the sidelines of a function to showcase Australia’s sports and event organising capabilities at the Conrad Hotel on Sunday.
The event, which is part of Asian-wide roadshow to demonstrate Australia’s capabilities, was attended by Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, and Andrew Robb, the Australian Minister of Trade and Investment.
The UAE is in the running to host the 16-team event, which is held every four years, along with Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) will announce the successful bid in November.
Having already held the event in 1996 as well as the Fifa Club World Cup in 2009 and 2010 and the Fifa Under-17 World Cup in 2013, the UAE is thought to be at a distinct advantage.
However, at Sunday’s function, Australian Fifa executive committee member and Asian Football Confederation vice-president Moya Dodd said the 2015 AFC Asian Cup in Australia would raise the benchmark.
“We are expecting tens of thousands of tourists for the competition as well as an accumulative TV audience of half a billion people,” said Dodd.
“Qatar, the last AFC Asian Cup hosts in 2011, had a TV audience of 400 million. But we are expecting half a billion, partly because the tournament is growing but also because we are in a very friendly time zone for the big broadcast markets of East Asia.
“We are certainly aiming for it to be the biggest ever AFC Asian Cup. We want to make it the best ever and give people across Asia something to remember.”
Meanwhile, Australia’s Consul General and Senior Trade Commissioner for Middle East and North Africa (Mena), Gerard Seeber, said Australia could help the UAE further raise the AFC Asian Cup’s profile in 2019, if the Emirates’ bid was successful. The offer was also extended to the UAE’s confirmed hosting of Expo 2020, which Australia last hosted in 1988.
“We have specific expertise around major events, sporting or otherwise, as we’ve hosted the Expo and the [Sydney 2000] Olympic Games,” said Seeber.
“The firms that have been involved in that have worked in every Olympic Games since, in everything from organisation to engineering.
“We can supply the relevant entities with a list of Australian firms that have these core competencies. And we are working to position Australian firms for when tenders come out.”
Dodd said helping future hosts was key to developing the tournament.
“Handing over expertise is part of the AFC’s philosophy,” she said. “Just as Qatar made their expertise available to Australia, we’re looking forward to making that expertise available to the next host of the Asian Cup in 2019.”
