Six weeks to pitch the future

For us football lovers, its manna from heaven, ‘hallelujah’ we shout, the game placed right where it should be, front and centre of the national consciousness.

The question is how to maximise the next six weeks in order to keep it there?

Which is why football has to be clever enough to leverage the incredible opportunity that comes courtesy of World Cup qualification to drive some key messages out to mainstream Australia.

One difference this time from 2006, a positive one in my view, is that this campaign is all about the players, the stars, those who will pull the shirt on and represent us all.

In Germany much of the focus was on Guus Hiddink, so large a presence was he.

Now, the players are bigger than Pim Verbeek, more celebrated, the focal point of the entire experience, and this is precisely as it should be.

This period of around six weeks until at least the Australia v Serbia game on 24 June, and hopefully later, is the single most important sales opportunity we have to educate more Australians on the virtues of football, and this time, it is the players who will be driving the message.

So it is important that for the next 10 days in Melbourne, and the further four weeks, that the players have a mind towards the broader objectives in Australia, to grow the game, to sell its virtues, to encourage participation and to always bring the message back to the kids and the values football can teach.

No other sport in Australia has greater ambassadors than ours. In an era of atrocious player behaviour and the constant criminality of other codes, here is a group of great dignity, composure, intelligence and phenomenal success, playing as they do in some of the toughest sporting competitions anywhere in the world, and being paid tens of millions of dollars to do so.

Which Australian child would not dream of being Harry Kewell, Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill and Mark Schwarzer?

And show me a parent who would not love their children to behave as well, to be so representative of Australian qualities, and to be so successful on their own terms. Making their way to the top in a game that, right from the start, throws up more hurdles to an Australian player than help.

South Africa 2010 is not about results, or not completely anyway because these can of course be fickle, but about Australian football once again showcasing the best we have to offer, and inspiring another generation of hundreds of thousands of young Aussies to make their own dreams come true through the round ball.

And this is the challenge for FFA, because for players the game is always about results, and it is a rare player who can see beyond to the broader issues to become a football evangelist even while they are still concerned about making the starting eleven.

Intense media saturation will have its own benefits anyway, as the spotlight is turned on football, but with a little strategic thought, today’s players can make a far greater impact on the shape of tomorrow’s game in this country.

Here are some messages that serve to assist football post 2010:

:: the democracy of football;

:: the growth in the women’s game;

:: the values that football teaches any young child of teamwork, respect and humility;

:: the utilisation of football by the Federal Government for ‘football diplomacy’ regionally and worldwide;

:: the fact that football represents everything Australia wants to be this century, outward looking, welcoming and ambitious;

:: the game as the single greatest connecting force of humanity across the globe;

:: the fact that football stands alone among the codes as a technical game with deep tactical sophistication, not one based on aggression but on beauty and intelligence;

:: a thankyou to the Federal Government for their vision in chasing the FIFA World Cup dream on behalf of the nation, and a call for further investment to allow Australia to achieve in the world’s toughest sporting arena;

:: the multiculturalism of football that allows Australians of any and every background to feel at home and to be a part of a common community;

:: the fact that football unites every Australian in a way that no other game or code can; the national regional and international scale of football that is unique among Australian games;

:: the need for further Government investment in grass roots football where more Australian children participate than in any other sport;

:: the necessity for the entire football family to unite on the National Curriculum to develop better players;

:: a call to arms for every State to administer the game in the National interests; Australia committing to winning the FIFA World Cup as the last great sporting frontier of this nation and the investment required to do so;

:: the value to indigenous Australia of developing a closer association with the round ball game;

:: the wonders of travelling the globe playing football for the world’s biggest clubs that sets our game apart from the rest;

:: selling the ‘international’ aspect of football that makes it so culturally diverse;

:: the growth of the A-League and its goal to become number one in Asia and the foremost professional sporting competition in Australia;

:: the importance of nurturing every child who finds a love of the football.

These are key messages that Australia’s greatest sporting heroes should take care to drive every time they are in front of the nation, to take advantage of their position as Australia’s ambassadors over the next month and a half.

Independent of results in South Africa, all of these messages can then be maintained by FFA after the World Cup is over and the wonderful journey ends, in order to ensure the game maximises growth for the next four years, and to keep football where it should be.

Front and centre of Australia’s national discussion today and in the future.