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Jesse Fink

You've got to wonder what the Asian Football Confederation makes of it.

Football Federation Australia, the host of the 2015 Asian Cup, stood to lose close to $9 million in the 2010-11 financial year but was saved by an emergency grant of $7.5 million from the federal government.

The fact was not recorded in the FFA's annual financial report and confirms what many have known in the Australian game for some time but been afraid to say publicly: Aussie football simply can't take care of itself without putting out the begging bowl.

The FFA has failed in its duty of care to the sport and, in my view, is being run by a pack of jokers who should be run out of town.

The farcical World Cup bid was wholly funded by taxpayers. The FFA gets more favours from Canberra than just about any other sport in the land. The A-League hasn't fired the public's imagination in the way its creators had hoped, the competition being fatally undermined by the FFA's own ineptitude in the key matter of expansion. The AFC continually marks down Australia in its assessment reports, locking in its number of Asian Champions League entrants at two, while lesser football powers get four. The looming TV rights deal, with so many crucial effects flowing on from it, stands to be a disaster.

It's not the way it's supposed to be.

And yet the comical FFA has responded to Ray Gatt's startling revelation in The Australian by suggesting there are elements working against it and "trying to make mischief".

"FFA has been subjected to more scrutiny than any other sport in relation to government funding and has satisfied all [its reporting] obligations," it said in a statement. "It's time for those who seek to make mischief to accept that there's nothing amiss."

"Those" of course, refers to journalists just doing their job. Like the pair who, in the words of the Football Media Association, the peak body of journalists in Australia, were allegedly victimised because of "unfavourable comments and suggestions to news organisations and to FIFA... in light of their reporting and commentary of football matters".

When the FMA tried to get a meeting with the FFA to voice its concerns and seek an explanation but was given the bum steer, one delegate from the aborted mission reported: "In 25 years I had not ever seen this level of disrespect for the most basic tenets of etiquette and corporate governance principles."

Sorry, the "mischief making" response won't wash, FFA.

There's too much at stake and too many good people working within the Australian game for the future of the sport in the land Down Under to be at the mercy of an organisation that is not only incapable of balancing the books but doing so with complete transparency.

Having entrusted its most important competition to Australia, it's time the AFC demanded not just improvement - but answers.

AFC, over to you.

European Club Association boss and Bayern Munich chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge hasn't quite withdrawn his one-time support for the idea of a breakaway European league but he's sounding a far more conciliatory note with FIFA than he was last July.

Remember the call for a "revolution"? For the effective running out of town of FIFA president Sepp Blatter?

His precise words, in fact, were: "I don't accept any longer that we [should be] guided by people who are not serious and clean... Sepp Blatter is saying [that he is cleaning up] but the fact that no one believes him tells you everything you need to know."

Now, astonishingly, Blatter is the man for the job.

"He has been elected by the federations, with a huge majority and standing ovations," Rummenigge told a press conference on Monday in Munich. "We have to recognise and accept that. Now he needs to show that he's willing to change. We should give him a chance to change; we should give him a chance."

Not coincidentally, Rummenigge met with Blatter in Zurich two days later to nut out a better deal for clubs releasing players for the World Cup. FIFA has reportedly agree to distribute €55m ($US70 million) among clubs for releasing players in 2014.

Scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. And so, it would appear, football loses another straight-talking maverick and Blatter gets some of the legitimacy he desperately seeks because money talks. It is highly depressing.

Especially when others in less powerful positions have shown the courage to take on the status quo.

The Liga Primer Indonesia started as an outlaw league in 2011 amid threats of retribution from FIFA, which didn't happen. In fact the rebels ended up taking over the country's football association. Indonesian football is still a hopelessly fractured mess, with effectively two national leagues (the Indonesia Super League and the Indonesia Premier League), but the LPI proved FIFA isn't as dogmatic as it pretends to be.

And next month a new six-team competition, Premier League Soccer, backed by the West Bengal-based India Football Association and private promoter Celebrity Management Group, is kicking off in India with a gaggle of 30 big names including Maniche, Fernando Morientes, Robert Pires and Hernan Crespo. It will run from February 25 to April 8.

What Indian Premier League was to cricket the PLS will be to football. And it will be running against the country's ruling All-India Football Federation and its I-League.

The IFA is a member of the AIFF and the PLS claims to have AIFF approval but - make no mistake - this isn't a love-in.

The power struggle between Kolkata and Delhi shows no signs of abating. And FIFA isn't stopping anyone.
Rummenigge held out the prospect of an elite European club competition not under FIFA or UEFA control.

No Mickey Mouse clubs. Just the heavyweights: the old G-14. In control of their own destiny. And he had the authorities worried.

Now whether you agree with such a competition or not, it was a direct challenge to FIFA's hegemony and worth applauding.

Sadly, this volte-face is not. Change will not happen at FIFA through appeasement and especially when Blatter or his acolyte, Michel Platini, in charge.

Dictators only topple one way: revolution. Rummenigge should go back to maintaining the rage.

He was for a long time pejoratively known as "Teflon Jack". Perhaps it's time he was known as "Tsunami Jack" after Jack Warner came good on his longstanding promise to unleash hell on FIFA and its president Sepp Blatter.

The combustible Warner, who used to be the big boss of the Caribbean, Central American and North American confederation commonly called CONCACAF, is not going away quietly after being forced out of football for his role in the Port of Spain "bribes" affair.

He's always had a big mouth, and huffed and blustered before, but up till this week never really came up with the goods to match his rhetoric.

The allegation that he bought the 1998 World Cup TV rights for his home nation of Trinidad & Tobago for the princely sum of $1 in return for supporting Blatter in that year's election is startling, but not new. Former FIFA general secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen first raised the $1-for-TV-rights allegation back in 2002.

Warner further claims he was sold the rights for subsequent World Cups in appreciation of his fidelity to Blatter.

Now Warner is no saint, having been a first-class passenger on the Zurich gravy train for years and having shown no willingness to get off it until an ethics committee probe into Port of Spain forced his hand.

He remains a contemptible figure in the eyes of the FIFA reform movement, spearheaded by the grassroots organisation ChangeFIFA, for the way he abused his office for his own ends.

But his allegation must be treated seriously and investigated fully with an eye to a possible ethics committee probe into Blatter himself.

The problem is: Then what? To put it bluntly: FIFA's investigative processes are a joke.

Blatter has come under the scrutiny of the "eth-co" before, for failing to report his knowledge that Mohamed Bin Hammam, who was running against him in the 2010 presidential election, was allegedly planning to bribe Caribbean Football Union officials in Port of Spain.

He was let off because he had to have proof the alleged bribes were received before reporting it. Knowledge that bribes might be paid and not reporting it is apparently considered okay.

His unauthorised donation of $1 million to CONCACAF in Miami (a subject Warner also raised again this week) in May that year was not even considered serious enough to investigate, even though Bin Hammam got turfed out of football for life for his "gift" of the same amount of money to Caribbean Football Union delegates the following week in Trinidad.

More recently, Thailand's executive committee member Worawi Makudi wasn't even referred to the "eth-co" despite brave whistleblowers in Thailand furnishing FIFA with cut-and-dry documents that showed he had his name on title deeds to land that had been developed with FIFA grants when it was supposed to have been transferred long before to the Thailand Football Association.

FIFA accepted an unwitnessed "letter of intent" from Makudi in 2003 as evidence Makudi had done nothing wrong.

The brutal truth is FIFA has failed time and time again to take action against big-time officials who have power and influence when there is compelling information that wrongs may have been perpetrated.

When it comes to small-time officials, though, or officials who threaten the status quo, ways are found to remove them expeditiously and maintain the perception that it is serious about "cleaning up the house".

It is selective application of justice. The same charge Warner was levelling against FIFA back in October: "A perceived right to do all in its power, right or wrong, to defend its own."

Nothing has changed.

So while an investigation into Blatter should take place immediately, and may well happen, chances are he'll only emerge from this stronger.

Nobody, not even Tsunami Jack, is a match for Untouchable Sepp.

When it came, the finding was swift, the language clear and to the point.

"No proceedings have been opened against Mr Makudi and the matter is now closed," FIFA said in a statement released to the press last week.

Worawi Makudi, the president of the Thailand Football Association and a member of FIFA's executive committee, was being let off.

The explosive allegation - aired by an anonymous whistleblower and reported by myself, the Swiss journalist Jean-Francois Tanda, Germany's Jens Weinreich and the BBC's Richard Conway - that he retained ownership of a land holding that was supposed to have been donated to the Thai FA yet been developed with FIFA grants, hadn't held up.

Which was a surprise. Because the documents provided by the whistleblower were pretty compelling. A team of lawyers in London had gone over them when they'd been presented to Sky News and they'd found Makudi "continued to own land he claimed he'd signed over to the Thai FA as recently as June this year".

I've seen them myself and don't have any arguments with that view.

So what exactly turned a potential scandal into a non-event?

Remember FIFA was not happy with Makudi's initial submission in his defence, declaring in November that "further confirmation is required from Mr Makudi that the land has legally been donated to the Thai FA and that this donation is effective".

Makudi claimed he had a "letter of intent" to donate the land, some 25,000 square metres. It was dated 27 September 2003.

But, according to Weinreich, it was only officially passed into the Thai FA's hands on November 16, 2011.

Eight years after the "letter of intent" was drafted.

Four months after allegations first surfaced that he still owned the land.

And just a matter of weeks after a FIFA probe was announced into Makudi's affairs.

The land had been developed years before with FIFA Goal Project money, presumably provided by FIFA on the assumption it was already owned by the Thai FA and not the Thai FA president.

Which raises an obvious question: Had the allegations not surfaced in the first place, would Makudi still be holding on to the land with, contrary to that "letter of intent", no intention of donating it to anyone?

After all, its value had increased substantially thanks to the improvements funded with FIFA cash. And Makudi's name - and only Makudi's name - was on the title deeds I and the other journalists saw.

That was the substance of the original allegation made by the whistleblower and crucially it holds up.

Makudi still owned the land when work commenced on it and FIFA picked up the tab. He still owned it when the story first broke in July. He still owned it when FIFA announced its was looking into the allegations.

In my opinion, it was a cut and dry case. Makudi should have been found guilty. Not let off.

FIFA's judgment does not reflect justice.

Frank Lowy is one of the richest men in the world. He's also the head of Football Federation Australia and the driver of Australia's disastrous World Cup bid.

So when he made the comment recently that "the last word hasn't been heard yet" on the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to the tiny Middle Eastern emirate of Qatar, it made the requisite ripples both in Australia, South-East Asia and beyond.

Lowy is livid about losing the Cup to Qatar but hasn't said why we've heard the last word. Not a skerrick of information. He's content to cast aspersions on the Qataris and cling on to his dream of seeing a World Cup on Australian soil before he dies.

Key word here is "his".

Australia 2022 was ostensibly a trumped-up vanity project for Lowy funded by the Australian taxpayer to the tune of $45.6 million and made all the more urgent because of his mortality. He's 81.

Offensive enough, in my view, when Lowy has more billions than he'll ever know what to do with and has been investigated by US authorities for tax evasion.

Why was it necessary to spend public money?

But doubly offensive, again in my view, when he entrusted the 2022 bid to Peter Hargitay and Fedor Radmann, two highly remunerated and utterly ineffective consultants the great British investigative journalist Andrew Jennings has likened to "bagmen".

For his trouble, Hargitay pocketed close to $1.5 million. Radmann, a shade over $3.6 million. A third individual, Andreas Abold, who was responsible for the bid book, final presentation and organising the all-important inspection visit got over $10 million minus costs.

The trio, at the very minimum, trousered close to $8.3 million. Quite a fee for one vote. And their travel bills weren't included in that amount.

Hargitay, who has boasted of being the brains behind the whole operation but has been absolved of any blame by Lowy, was recommended to the FFA by Les Murray, a member of FIFA's ethics committee. This supposed paragon of ethics thought a man who'd previously worked with the likes of Union Carbide (responsible for up to 25,000 deaths in Bhopal) and Marc Rich (Google his name and "most wanted"), was the right man for the job.

The people of Australia thank you, Les.

Even a year on from the decision in Zurich, Lowy still doesn't get it.

Australia was never going to win - the USA had the outstanding bid - even though he, Hargitay and Murray conveniently shop the line that the entire Qatari strategy was built around minimising the Australian vote.

And if those 14 FIFA executive committee members who voted for Qatar were corrupt, why is Australia such an outspoken supporter of Blatter and his crumbling regime?

Australia was undone not by the Qataris but by Lowy's own decision-making. Though he has excelled in his business life and at various times has been an asset to the FFA he owes the Australian public a whole lot more than stoking the Qatar conspiracy. What he owes them is a contrite apology for wasting their money on overpaid, unnecessary international consultants.

Saying, as he did in 2010, "I directed the bid and I take full responsibility" is not enough.

If Lowy has evidence that the Qataris did something untoward to win 2022, then he should cough it up.

If he doesn't, then might I suggest he take a long hard look at himself.

The answers he seeks for his failure might be within.

So December 1 has come and gone, the deadline from FIFA for South-East Asia's sole executive committee member Worawi Makudi to pass on new documents that will clear up this unfortunate business of his name appearing on title-deed documents for land developed with almost a million dollars of FIFA grants.

The same land, of course, was supposed to have been donated to the Thai Football Association.

Very unfortunate. But Thai FA president Makudi, one of Asian football's heaviest hitters, thinks it's all a misunderstanding and that he will be cleared.

Last month he said he had a "letter of intent" to donate the land and this was legal authority enough to claim he had transferred ownership.

How a Bangkok court sees that legally is one thing. How it should be seen morally and ethically by FIFA is quite another.

Richard Conway of the BBC, who has been following the case closely, tweeted this week that FIFA investigators had confirmed to the Beeb "for the time being, no [ethics] case has been opened".

Even though the cache of documents (in Thai and English) that landed Makudi in hot water in the first place have been with FIFA since October, released to head of security Chris Eaton at the behest of director of legal affairs Marco Villiger.

We'll just have to wait and see, then.

But the most important question that needs to be asked of FIFA before any ethics committee investigation is announced or even if Makudi is found to have no case to answer is this: Will the documents be made available to the public?

After all, historically FIFA's assurances regarding the integrity of its executive committee members have counted for nothing.

Its much-maligned ethics committee features suckholes of the ilk of Australia's Les Murray, who this week told a Chartered Secretaries Australia conference on the topic of "Managing Sports Governance" that Sepp Blatter, under whose leadership FIFA has become an international pariah, "owes nobody nothing" and was the right man to lead the organisation.

Transparency remains a vexed issue at FIFA.

Already watchdog group Transparency International has declined an invitation from FIFA to take a seat on its new Independent Governance Committee after it was revealed its head, Mark Pieth, was being paid directly by FIFA and the committee would not be looking into the organisation's past. An absurd proposition effectively tantamount to a war crimes tribunal at The Hague deciding not to investigate war crimes.

TI charged that Pieth, a criminal law professor at Basel University, was not truly independent and the terms of reference were a joke.

Now Pieth has done a total backflip and says looking into the past is "necessary" and he has "absolutely no objection to an investigation".

Great. So it would stand to reason, then, that FIFA's new spirit of openness and accountability is extended to the Makudi investigation.

Or you would think. Watch this space.

Well, it was always threatening to be an organisational disaster. Now it's just about a sure thing, with three-time World Player of the Year Ronaldo installed as the new head of the organising committee for Brazil 2014.

His appointment comes at the behest of the embattled Ricardo Teixeira, the president of the Brazil Football Confederation, a FIFA executive committee member and subject of serious bribery, tax evasion and money-laundering allegations.

Only last month British investigative reporter Andrew Jennings was appearing before a Brazilian senate committee looking into the allegations, and heard that Teixeira may have pocketed as much as US$9.5 million in kickbacks from the notorious International Sport and Leisure (ISL) sports marketing company between 1989 and 1999.

Teixeira should be provisionally suspended, if not turfed off the ex-co altogether. The substance to the charges and sheer money involved eclipse anything Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam was supposedly up to in Port of Spain earlier this year, and Bin Hammam has been banned from football for life.

Yet Jerome Valcke, FIFA's general secretary and watchdog of Brazil's preparations, says Teixeira has no case to answer - yet.

"In a democracy, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Why should FIFA be different? This is being investigated."

Well, so we're told. But where is the full ethics committee investigation? What more does FIFA need to take action? The evidence against Teixeira is compelling. Why was a different standard of forbearance applied to Bin Hammam?

Teixeira shouldn't be appointing anyone, let alone a corpulent ex-footballer who brings nothing to the job but his name. No matter if that name is Ronaldo. Such a crucial position should be filled by a candidate of the utmost expertise.

And what is FIFA doing standing by allowing it to happen?

The World Cup is its cash cow. Its entire existence and continuing financial health is predicated on putting on successful World Cups.

There are grave concerns some venues won't even be ready for 2014. Infrastructure remains a massive headache. Some improvement projects haven't even been started and the tournament is only two and a half years away.

Yes, it's going to be a load of fun even if the stadiums are falling down and jumbo jets are landing in razed favelas. Any football fan would be mad to miss getting to Rio to party on the beach with more bronzed booty than a Snoop Dogg video. Especially when the following two World Cups are going to Russia and Qatar.

But these events require more than just good vibes and big names.

Roles such as Ronaldo's should belong to the best professionals in the business, not be whored out for cynical populist ends to take some of the heat off a troubled football official.

And that's exactly what Teixeira is doing. It's an outrage.

So it's come to an end. Harry Kewell, still one of Asia's biggest football stars and now with Melbourne Victory after a topsy-turvy career in Europe, parting ways with Bernie Mandic, his longtime svengali/manager.

An Australian betting agency on Twitter cleverly likened it to Entourage's Vincent Chase dumping Ari Gold. Quite.

A disclosure here: I've met Mandic. I like him. We've shared a coffee and chatted about football, family and the meaning of it all. I've also met Kewell, through Mandic, having profiled him for a major sports magazine in Australia. I like him too. As men they are both decent, generous and hardworking. They're also hardnosed. I don't think I've come across a pair in sports as versed in the art of milking a dollar as Kewell and Mandic.

There was Kewell's acrimonious departure from Leeds to Liverpool, which set up Mandic for life. Then more recently there was the protracted will-he-or-won't-he deal with Victory, which dragged on longer than the final reel of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and deservedly earned both men some criticism, including some vocal ribbing from me.

It was pathetic seeing Mandic argue about gate percentages and revenue shares and third-party deals like Kewell was bigger than Beckham, the second coming. As we have seen this A-League season, he's not a patch on what he used to be. He hasn't even scored.

And he's hardly an ornament to team spirit, either, having engaged the services of former Albicelestes hero Abel Balbo as his personal coach, right under the nose of Victory coach Mehmet Durakovic.

But Kewell has made a grievous mistake with this decision.

The time for changing managers was long ago. Not now, at the end of his playing career.
It shows what little loyalty he has to a man who, rightly or wrongly, for near two decades looked out for what he regarded as Kewell's best interests.

The polarising Mandic wasn't doing it for altruism - there was the consideration of money involved in everything he did - but he was before anything else a friend to Kewell.

The player's choice to go with celebrity agent James Erskine, the man who handles Shane Warne and Michael Parkinson, among others, strikes me as utterly pointless. There are reports Warne himself, more frightful waxwork these days than awe-inspiring sports legend, nudged Kewell in Erskine's direction.

Mandic didn't just do football deals for Kewell. He was across every aspect of his career. From choosing what magazine and TV interviews he did to negotiating contracts to model fashion lines to vetting what ghostwriter would pen his much-ballyhooed biography.

He got Kewell some very good deals, never shied from a scrap (I know; Mandic was quick to question me when I directed criticism at Kewell) and always put his client first.

If there is one aspect of Mandic's relationship with Kewell that could have been better handled it was that he appeared too close to the player.

Mandic didn't cultivate substantial relationships with other players to ameliorate the perception that Kewell was his cash cow. They were seen as a double act to the point that Mandic's shadow loomed large over everything Kewell did. That shouldn't have been allowed to happen.

But overall Mandic was a positive guide in Kewell's career and deserved a far better fate than this. After losing his wife and mother of his eight children to cancer, this will be a big blow to Mandic.

The biggest blow, however, is to Kewell's image, ironically what Erskine has been supposedly tasked to nurture and enhance with an eye to the player's life after football.

There's only so many ways you can dress up a turncoat.

Could this be the straw that broke the camel's back? Will Sepp Blatter's latest atrocity against decency finally see him do the right thing by the "football family" and resign his post as FIFA president?

No. The indestructible old codger will ride this out like he has everything else. He might apologise but he won't go. Only a SEAL Team 6 operation could remove Blatter from FIFA House in Zurich.

Already he's put his shameful comments about racism to two separate interviewers from Al Jazeera and CNN down to misinterpretation, left his PR flacks to clean up the mess and taken to Twitter to insist "I am committed to fighting this plague and kicking it out of football" and "racism and discrimination of any kind have no place in football".

Poppycock. If that were so then there wouldn't have been so many startling qualifications and bizarre defences in the interview.

There were so many highlights.

"There is no racism, but maybe there is a word or gesture which is not the correct one."

"During a match you may make a movement towards somebody or you may say something to somebody who is not exactly looking like you, but at the end of the match it is forgotten."

"Racism is if there are spectators or, outside the field of play, there are movements to discrimination, but, on the field of play, I deny that there is racism."

To summarise, then: racism doesn't exist in football, those being victimised on the field forget all about it when the whistle blows, and only fans and others outside the marked lines of a football pitch are capable of race hate and prejudice.

What's to be misinterpreted? I really must be missing something.

Interpret this, then. Blatter is a plague. The pox on FIFA House. He must be removed from the game. He no longer has any moral claim to lead the "football family".

How can FIFA, a sports organisation that arguably oversees more black athletes than any other on the planet, be singularly incapable of having a president that speaks for them, actually understands the gravity of the issue of racism and treats it with the seriousness it deserves?

FIFA has been as erratic in its commitment to eradicating racism in football as the Catholic Church has been in eradicating child-abusing priests.

No sports body is perfect, but compared to the death star of FIFA, the international governing bodies of cricket, rugby, rugby league, baseball and basketball are bastions of justice, enlightenment and progressiveness.

Football is supposed to be the beautiful game. So why is its leader so ugly?

On October 6 your columnist weighed in on the Qatar 2022 air-conditioning issue. It has been bothering me for some time, more so than anything Mohamed Bin Hammam, Hassan Al-Thawadi or the Emir of Qatar has been accused of doing in winning the Cup for the Middle East.

"To date there isn't one shred of incontrovertible evidence that the test demonstrations that were done on an empty 500-seater stadium with a six-a-side football pitch can be replicated successfully in an arena filled with 87,000 people, the capacity of the Lusail Iconic Stadium that will host the final, and on a full-sized football pitch. It's all theory and blind hope."

I was charged with jumping the gun, even being a Qatar hater. We will show you, my detractors railed.

But it's only been four weeks and already one of the chief contractors responsible for building the nine carbon-neutral, air-conditioned stadia needed for the World Cup has confessed at the International Football Arena powwow in Zurich that the cooling technology to be employed is "notoriously unsustainable".

John Barrow of architectural firm Populous, which has been commissioned to design the 47,500-seater Sports City in Doha, says his firm believes a better and more environmentally friendly way to ventilate the stadiums is to use wind towers.

"If you have got an air movement which keeps you cool like a fan that makes all the difference," he says. "It doesn't need to be 26 degrees. Fan expectation needs to be a little more relaxed."

The Qatar PR machine has naturally rejected the idea as preposterous.

 "All our commitments that have been made to FIFA that are in the bid book are still going ahead as planned," says Nasser Al Khater, Qatar 2022's communications director. "There's no plan of scrapping cooling technology whatsoever."

But this isn't the first time that one of the architects entrusted with the responsibility of delivering Qatar 2022's raft of promises has deviated from the script.

Michael Beaven of Arup Associates, which built the test stadium that carried the Qatari bid over the line and is speaking in Doha this week as part of the Aspire4Sport business and sports conference, was rebuked in July for suggesting matches be broken up into three 30-minute "thirds" so as to protect players' health in the furnace-like heat of the Arabian summer.

No doubt, having been proverbially torn a new one by his Qatari employers, he will be singing a different tune in Doha.

So kudos to Barrow for speaking out of line. I have no doubt he is right, and perhaps, like most simple ideas, the "wind tunnel" idea is a more ecological solution to Qatar's formidable challenge.

But he's wrong about fan expectation needing to be "a little more relaxed".

Fan expectation is that this World Cup is going to be a disaster. That the air-conditioning won't work. That shortcuts will be made. That excuses will flow. That all the fancy graphics in the bid book won't be rendered so efficiently when it comes to real life. And the comments of Barrow and Beaven are only adding weight to those extant fears.

What fans want is to be reassured - with evidence - that what Qatar 2022 promised FIFA's executive committee will be executed to the letter and fulfilled without compromise.

And to date, despite all the PR effort being made, that reassurance simply hasn't come.

Not good enough. That's the message from FIFA to its sole South-East Asian representative on its executive committee, Worawi Makudi, after he was asked to provide documents substantiating his claim he had signed over land he owns that had been developed with FIFA development grants to the football association he leads, the Thailand FA.

Makudi submitted a 30-page defence to FIFA and it has come up short.

"After an in-depth analysis of the documentation received so far, FIFA still considers further confirmation is required from Mr Makudi that the land has legally been donated to the Thai FA and that this donation is effective," FIFA said in an official statement released on Wednesday.

"FIFA has therefore asked Mr Makudi to provide by December 1, 2011 the legal provisions and documentation that would confirm this donation of land. Should FIFA not receive the requested legal confirmation by that date, the matter would be referred to the ethics committee."

Extraordinary stuff, given Makudi was breezily telling reporters in September there was "nothing to worry about".

But, you see, another stack of paper, six sets of land documents, was personally handed over last month to FIFA's head of security Chris Eaton and director of legal affairs Marco Villiger by the whistleblower who first came to me and Swiss journalist Jean-Francois Tanda earlier this year with allegations against the Thai FA president.

The documents have also been seen by Richard Conway, formerly of Sky News in Britain, and now with the BBC, who had a team of lawyers go over them.

As Sky News reported in September, they appear to show that Makudi "continued to own land he claimed he'd signed over to the Thai FA as recently as June this year".

They contradict Makudi's claim he signed the land over and, on the events of this week, would seem to carry more weight than the documents offered by Makudi.

Makudi says he's "disappointed" FIFA did not accept his explanation and its "failure to do so has tainted my reputation".

Balderdash. Makudi has been the subject of various allegations independent of the land issue.

Such as Lord Triesman's well-publicised claim that Makudi had "expressed a desire to see a match between England and Thailand, in order to commemorate an anniversary (50th or 60th) of the King of Thailand's accession to the throne" and had expressed a wish for the TV rights to go to him personally.

Makudi said that tainted his reputation.

Such as the claim made by the Thai sports newspaper Hot Score that he had resold 2010 World Cup tickets that had been provided to him by FIFA free of charge.

Makudi said that tainted his reputation.

Then there is the gathering pile of other accusations against the combative 59-year-old, including nepotism, cronyism, abuse of power and lack of transparency in his and the Thai FA's political and financial dealings.

The football fans of Thailand have had enough of Makudi (that much is clear from Thai internet forums) but because the man rules that country's football scene with an iron fist the same whistleblowers who released the land documents to FIFA had to go to the international media to publicise their grievances.

The change wasn't going to come from inside Thailand, where the mainstream media have been loath to bring pressure on Makudi.

As I see it, the only person tainting Makudi's reputation is Makudi himself. His reputation is his to make and his to ruin.

Now that ASEAN has indicated its desire to bid for the 2030 World Cup, he should resign his FIFA position immediately and restore honour to South-East Asian football. It deserves a far better and, in my view, less tainted representative.

He might even save some of his own precious reputation in the process.

By Jesse Fink

Carlos Tevez suing Roberto Mancini for defamation? It's like Adolf Hitler suing Fiorello LaGuardia for being called a "perverted maniac".

Preposterous. But that's what Benchgate has become.

Utterly ridiculous.

Tevez has been fined a month's wages (about £1 million) by a Manchester City tribunal and found guilty on a handful of charges relating to what Graham Wallace, City's chief operating officer, described as the Argentinean's pointed refusal "to carry out instructions given to you by Mancini and [fitness coach] Ivan Carminati [City's fitness coach] to resume warming up with a view to playing in the match" against Bayern Munich last month in the Champions League.

The crucial plank in any action is that City's statement quantifies what Tevez has maintained all along: that he refused to warm up when directed to by Mancini, not to come on. The language used by Wallace certainly could have been stronger but there weren't enough witnesses to back Mancini's assertion that Tevez refused to take the field.

City substitutes called before the tribunal backed Tevez's version of events.

For the record, Mancini said on 27 September: "He refused to go in. He refused to come onto the pitch. He refused to warm up."

But it is splitting hairs and Tevez is, as I see it, still guilty as sin.

A manager has a right to demand any of his players warm up whenever he so wishes.

It is not disputed that Tevez said "Por que?" or "Why?" when he was asked to warm up. Tevez maintains he was ready to come on after already warming up throughout the match.

Whether he was is really beside the point. The issue is that he was given an instruction by his manager and didn't follow it.

Direct violation of the "contractual obligations" set out by City in its statement. Namely: "To undertake such other duties and to participate in such other activities as are consistent with the performance of the player's duties and as are reasonably required of him" and "to comply with and act in accordance with all lawful instructions of any authorised official of the club".

City clearly regard warming up and coming on as one and the same thing. They are indivisible. Which is why the words "with a view to playing in the match" are appended to the phrase "warming up".

When Mancini was ready to bring Tevez on, he was entitled to expect his player warmed up.

That he warmed up before that point in time is irrelevant. What is relevant is that he refused to warm up at the time he was required.

And, in my view, whatever the differing versions of events, that substantiates Mancini's original claim that Tevez refused to play.

Tevez would do well to take his punishment and get on with repairing his relationship with Mancini, not further straining it.

But humility, as we saw in Munich, has never been his strong point.

Sepp Blatter is a master of survival. If he wasn't the president of FIFA he could have his own cable-TV adventure show like Bear Grylls, where he's dropped into the Yucatan rainforest to live off tree grubs and the occasional cooked lizard.

Whatever the environment, whatever the crisis, he seems to emerge even stronger than ever and we collectively wonder just how he does it.

But right now, in the midst of trying to recast himself as a reformer rather than the root of the world game's problems, he's bitten off more than he can chew.

There has been speculation this week that Blatter plans to release documents that show football officials of the highest echelon took kickbacks from the defunct Swiss company International Sport and Leisure (ISL) in exchange for the granting of World Cup marketing rights in the 1990s.

The officials allegedly involved are former FIFA president and now honorary life president Joao Havelange and executive committee members Ricardo Teixeira, Issa Hayatou and Nicolas Leoz.

Blatter has been resisting releasing the documents for a long time; and for good reason. He's complicit in what happened despite being cleared by a Zurich court of any wrongdoing in 2002 for his role in ISL's rise and its subsequent collapse.

The question that needs to be asked of him now is what he knew when it was going on and why, according to British investigative journalist Andrew Jennings whose heroic work into uncovering the facts of ISL's implosion has now forced FIFA's hand, he protected those officials whose palms were being greased.

As Jennings wrote in the opening of his sensational 2006 book Foul, FIFA mistakenly received a payment in 1997 from ISL for $1 million. It was supposed to go to Havelange directly and Blatter ordered that it be paid into Havelange's account.

Jennings made the claim in a subsequent BBC Panorama investigation that "Mr Havelange got a US$1 million-dollar bung in 1997. Sepp Blatter knew about it. He did nothing."

Now FIFA's new brigade of PR flacks might like to pass off the release of the documents now as a sign of the world body's commitment to transparency, but in my view, if the allegation is true, Blatter's previous failure to disclose Havelange's payment when he was FIFA's general secretary is about as untransparent as you can get and worthy of the utmost censure.

It makes his position untenable, whatever claim he has to transparency laughable and he should resign. The fact any money Havelange received from ISL was paid back is irrelevant.

If FIFA now wants to institute a "fit and proper person" test for its executive committee, it can't have also have a president who allegedly committed such a moral atrocity.

It effectively renders whatever FIFA says or does this week meaningless.

A word on this latest secret video business with Jack Warner. That the guy gives a bad name to football officials everywhere, past or present, is beyond dispute. Going by his extensive rap sheet, he's an avaricious grub. Andrew Jennings memorably called him a "racist kleptomaniac".

CONCACAF and FIFA are clearly in a better place without him, even if he still outrageously draws a pension for agreeing to parachute out of the game rather than face an ethics committee investigation into his role in the Port of Spain bribes affair, into which the same "eth-co" is now investigating 15 Caribbean Football Union delegates who accepted the cash "gifts".

He's accused FIFA itself of leading a "conspiracy" against him and the CFU 15 by leaking the tape to the press and constitutes an act that "clearly sub-judicious and contrary to the very principles of law and justice".

Moreover he charges "this is what defines FIFA: a perceived right to do all in its power, right or wrong, to defend its own".

Says Warner: "The CFU delegates must be found guilty if Sepp Blatter is to appear as an honourable man weeding out corruption from FIFA. So the tiny union in the Caribbean must be the scapegoat; and a team of officials, all Swiss and strategically located along FIFA's hierarchical strata, is in place to ensure that their Swiss brother, Sepp Blatter, emerges with his integrity intact."

Frankly, for about the first time I can remember and putting aside the loony talk of a Frederick Forsyth-like conspiracy of cantons, Warner is right.

The man was quite happy to play FIFA's sleazy game while he was in power and, as we saw during the World Cup bidding process, whore any integrity he might have had in exchange for favours. Morally he has no leg to stand on. But his observation about Zurich's selective application of justice is completely accurate.

Mohamed Bin Hammam has been banned for life for doing the same thing Sepp Blatter did, doling out cash gifts to football associations with no caveats on how that money was spent. Recall, if you will, that a week before the CFU meeting in Port of Spain, Blatter gave a $1 million cheque to CONCACAF at the confederation's congress in Miami without anyone's approval or knowledge.

Michel Platini, the president of UEFA, and the man Warner fears will turn FIFA into a "French province, forever" if he takes over in 2015 when Blatter's term ends, made a complaint about it to general secretary Jerome Valcke. Nothing happened. The finance committee, headed by Blatter's vice-president Julio Grondona, subsequently approved the payment.

Blatter is still in power, untouchable. Bin Hammam has been expunged. Blatter gets his second act. Bin Hammam gets hooked off stage.

There's something rotten in this story, and it's not Warner.

It was a typical response from South-East Asia's most powerful football figure, Worawi Makudi.

Rather than explain just how it could come to be that title deed documents actually show his name owning, as late as June 10 this year, a mortgage on land on which sits the National Football Training Centre in Bangkok, a property that has been partly built with FIFA grants, he's threatening to sue.

Worawi threatened to sue Lord Triesman, who claimed the Thailand Football Association boss wanted broadcasting rights to a planned Thailand versus England friendly in exchange for favourable reception of the England 2018 bid . He threatened to sue the editors of sports daily Hot Score, who claimed he resold for profit FIFA tickets provided for free. He's now threatening to sue the people responsible for distributing those title deed documents to the "western" press, which included me.

I've seen them. And they're compelling. At the very least they demand an explanation from Worawi. Nothing on them suggests the land has been transferred to the Thai FA (which wouldn't mean much anyway, as he's been in power so long its effectively he and his mates' cabana).

But instead of doing just that, his first reaction is to engage a law firm and dispatch the hounds.

It won't wash. Asian football fans, players and coaches are sick and tired of the lack of plain speak from football officials and their lack of accountability.

It's time for straight answers from Worawi. Starting with the title deed documents.

Then moving on to his ownership of shares in the Thai Premier League, which former Asian Football Confederation general secretary Peter Velappan told international affairs expert James M. Dorsey on his blog, The Turbulent World Of Middle East Soccer, struck him as "a conflict of interest".

Then on to why he was in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, in May with suspended AFC president Mohamed Bin Hammam at that much disputed Caribbean Football Union meeting when he told the local media he was going to be in Qatar.

Then on to how he can justify beyond his own self-interest and political survival the sacking of Thai futsal committee chairman Adisak Benjasiriwan, the man credited with bringing the FIFA Futsal World Cup to South-East Asia in 2012 and who dared back Virach Charnpanich in his failed candidacy for the post of Thai FA president.

And lastly on to those tickets, one of which had Worawi's name printed on it, the other with the name of the company holding the World Cup broadcasting rights for Thailand, that allegedly came into the possession of a Thai couple and which form the basis of the claims made by Hot Score.

Even Bangkok's The Nation newspaper has weighed in this week, insisting "for his sake and that of all fans, he must provide the true facts" and that his performance at a press conference was "more of a threat to those who spread the allegation to the western press, rather than trying to explain to the public exactly what happened".

Thai newspapers habitually go soft when it comes to allegations of impropriety in the country's football governance. But no more.

Lay it on the table, Worawi. Not more writs.

Les Murray might not be a name familiar to a lot of Asian readers outside of Australia. But he should be.

Murray is one of three Asian members - along with Indonesia's Surya Tahir Dharma and Guam's Robert Torres - who sit on FIFA's 13-member ethics committee, an increasingly powerful organ of football's world body.

Increasingly powerful because over the past 12 months it has been called upon to rid the organisation of allegedly dodgy elements within its political framework: executive committee members Mohamed Bin Hammam, Jack Warner, Reynald Temarii, Amos Adamu and a rogues' gallery of officials underneath them.

Fellow ex-co members Worawi Makudi, Chuck Blazer, Vernon Manilal Fernando, Ricardo Teixeira, Issa Hayatou and Nicolas Leoz can count themselves fortunate not to have joined them in purgatory. Thailand's Worawi and Sri Lanka's Fernando especially so, given allegations that have surfaced in the media in recent weeks. An investigation has just been announced into Worawi's affairs.

So Murray, an on-air presenter for Australian TV network SBS and chairman of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Sports Group (he spends quite a bit of time in Asia), has his work cut out, shuttling from Sydney to Zurich in business class, sitting behind a big desk, corrugating his brow, looking learned, sitting in judgment of bad apples and doing his level best for the "good of the game".

He's proud of the role he's had bestowed on him by his pal FIFA president Sepp Blatter, and to be among such exalted company. Murray, who has sat on the committee since 2006, has said himself that all of its members are "utterly honourable and decent men and women who are outside FIFA's political machinery and who have no agendas other than to ensure that FIFA's code of ethics are not breached".

Great. We need them to be.

But this week Murray told a porky on Australian television. And on no less than the ABC's Four Corners, Australia's equivalent of BBC's Panorama or PBS's Frontline.

He was asked, in his capacity as editorial supervisor of sport at SBS, whether there was a "preferred editorial policy" to support Australia's failed World Cup bid. He said there was not.

"SBS [was a] supporter of the bid, but that never was allowed to interfere with editorial independence or editorial process," he told reporter Quentin McDermott.

"No, we had never declared any kind of editorial policy to support the bid." Yet as Four Corners' sister programme 7.30 proved in July, there was.

I know, because as a former SBS freelancer and top-rating columnist for its football website The World Game, I received an email from Murray as far back as June 2008 that outlined a "preferred editorial policy".

The email read: "It is not a good look if we, SBS, the most powerful voice in football appear to talk down the bid or declare it stillborn.

"Given that the bid has great support in Australia, including enthusiastic support by all governments, my preferred editorial policy would be to support it."

The Four Corners interview was filmed before the 7.30 story. Murray would not be interviewed by 7.30 and prior to the programme being aired reportedly had lawyers send a letter to the ABC stating he was ready to institute legal proceedings.

So the question needs to be asked and asked loudly from the rooftops: Does a member of the FIFA ethics committee stating to camera something that has been proven to be false constitute a breach of ethics?

How is such behaviour becoming of an official whose job it is to sit in judgment of the ethics of others?

In my view SBS's sports department had a clear pro-Australian World Cup bid bias on Murray's watch during the 2018/2022 bidding process - despite the network's stringent denials.

In another email Murray, a supposed paragon of neutrality, even suggested I attack the American bid.

"Just an idea but you may want to respond to this Gulati clown in a blog," he wrote of USA 2022 bid boss Sunil Gulati.

"That's if you hold that view, of course. I can't because of my role on the FIFA ethics committee. I can wise you up on the arguments why his claims don't hold much water, starting with the fact that they are all based on money."

He even stated, "as a private individual", post the 2022 hosting rights decision in Zurich last December that something corrupt happened with the Qatar bid, telling SBS Radio: "I'm convinced there was collusion. That Qatar should hold the World Cup is a notion that borders on the ludicrous.

"If you are going to take the World Cup to new lands, why not take it to Australia? FIFA is in big trouble. Nobody will believe that Qatar won this process legitimately - people will probe away asking questions."

Yet just a matter of months later he sat on a truncated five-member ethics committee in judgment of Asian Football Confederation president Bin Hammam, one of Qatar 2022's most important spruikers. (Bin Hammam has been banned for life from football and is taking his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.)

Outside of SBS Murray published a book containing a story about the Australian captain Lucas Neill that was false and was threatened with legal action. He later backed down and apologised.

Now, in my view, he has effectively told a fib in an interview on Australian television. And this man sits on the ethics committee?

FIFA can't be that hard up for talent. An opera singer could do a better job. Oh wait, that's right: Placido Domingo's hands are already full.

Murray should resign or be shown the door.

Another edition of the Asian Champions League, another early departure for Australian teams. Sydney FC is already gone while Melbourne Victory has a faint chance of making the quarter-finals if it can defeat Jeju United away and Chinese Group E leaders Tianjin Teda can pull off the upset of the year by beating Gamba Osaka in Japan.

Without wanting to pre-empt the result in Jeju, I think we can call it a day on the Aussie challenge. And it's time to ask why, once again, a nation that is indisputably one of the top three in Asia cannot do what Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and other lesser football nations can: comfortably qualify for the second phase of the competition.

Since joining the ACL in 2007, Australia has competed five times, its best result Adelaide United going all the way to the final in 2008.

Plucky Newcastle Jets made the round of 16 in 2009 (getting a rude shock in losing 6-0 to Pohang Steelers) and Adelaide again made the quarters in 2010 losing on penalties to Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors.
So three finals qualifications out of a possible ten (Australia has been lumped with its present allocation of two spots all the way through).

It's a poor return. I've previously tried to explain for ESPN STAR the reasons for this: nothing can detract from the fact Australia is handicapped in all sorts of ways. Not least the fact that competing teams are in a long off-season and are the best teams not from the season just played but the season before. Match fitness and match sharpness are huge advantages for clubs facing off against Australian teams. Add to that a comparatively small A-League (ten teams for 2012) and a crippling salary cap that doesn't allow Australian clubs to splurge on expensive South American strikers and you have a recipe for systematic failure.

But anyone who has seen Australia's contingent try their level best against Japanese teams (Melbourne vs Gamba Osaka, Sydney vs Kashima Antlers) especially can see that in technical quality Australians are considerably lacking in what's required to go far in the competition.

Not that many western Asian teams would do much better against the Japanese, either. They are very fortunate they are protected from facing them until the finals.

That doesn't obviate from the stark reality, however, that in combination play, ball possession, lightness of touch, structure, positioning, movement off the ball and sheer fitness the Japanese and Koreans are at another level altogether. The Australians try to compensate for that deficiency with physical intimidation and by aerially bombarding their strikers hoping for a miracle but it's not enough.

That said, there is a glimmer of hope for Australia: Brisbane Roar.

They were a team that destroyed all before them in the A-League last season playing a very fluid style of football that earned them the sobriquet "Roarcelona" and have an Antipodean Pep Guardiola in Ange Postecoglou. They will be a match for any Japanese team.

But we will all have to wait until 2012 to see them play and they are the exception to the rule. I have high hopes for them.

Yet their quality should not disguise the fact Australian football has a lot of improving to do if it can ever hope to consistently lay down the gauntlet and challenge for the title of best in Asia.

This process will take a long time and be generational, involving a shift in cultural mindset, grassroots methodology and practical application, and it's starting to happen.

You just won't be seeing much more of it in 2011.

How is it that US Army special forces can take out the world's most wanted fugitive in his hideaway in Pakistan yet one of the most powerful men in world sport cannot enter the United States?

Mohamed bin Hammam, the president of the Asian Football Confederation and candidate for FIFA's top job, explained this week on his personal blog (afcpresident.com) that he was unable to attend the CONCACAF Congress in Miami "due to issues beyond my control" but it's being reported he could not get a visa - even though his entourage was able to enter the US freely after attending the CONMEBOL Congress in Asuncion.

In the post 9/11 world nationals of any country from the Middle East are subject to understandable scrutiny from US Immigration but even still, Bin Hammam is a public figure, a giant of the Asian sporting/business/political scene.

Not allowing him to travel to the US defies belief.

Irrespective of whether his visa rejection was a simple matter of his paperwork being mishandled or not processed in time (which you would suspect), such matters should be able to be resolved through individual discretion.

Bin Hammam is nothing less than a world VIP and had a crucial meeting to attend. He wasn't going to Disney World. These factors alone should have seen him granted entry to the US.

But it wasn't enough and potentially the welfare of the world game has been compromised.

As Andrew Warshaw explained for Inside World Football: "[The AFC president's] non-appearance in Miami, where he was hoping to present his vision for the future of FIFA, will give Blatter a free run in the lobbying stakes and could theoretically seriously weaken his chances of unseating the 75-year-old Swiss in Zurich on June 1."

That's because Jack Warner, the head of CONCACAF and the man widely regarded as the kingmaker in the FIFA presidential race, has made it clear his 35-member confederation could vote as a bloc in the FIFA Congress on June 1.

Anyone who knows how Warner operates will tell you he likes special care and attention. The personal touch. A bit of grovelling obeisance. Just ask the English FA, who were asked to jump through proverbial hoops in their attempts to get Warner's backing for England 2018.

Bin Hammam is acutely aware that his non-appearance has severely dented his chances of victory, which is why he has made the point of assuring Warner that he will make amends by doing "all I can to meet the member associations in that dear part of the world in the coming days and weeks, to let them know first hand of my plans for the future of football".

But the damage may already have been done. Irreparably so. Visa stamps shouldn't decide FIFA elections but the one that didn't appear in Bin Hammam's Qatari passport may do just that.

Football Federation Australia, the next host of the Asian Cup, is in such a mess that it is now being subjected to a "review" of its operations by the Australian federal government. Senator Mark Arbib, the sports minister, announced the inquiry on Easter Sunday to "assess the structure, governance and administration of football in Australia" and indicated it could take months to complete.

What an embarrassment for the FFA, an organisation that not so long ago was bidding for the World Cup and sparing no expense to trot out superannuated but internationally recognised celebrities such as Elle Macpherson and Paul Hogan to sell the message that Australia was the "safe" option for the world's biggest sporting event.

Safe? It can barely run itself. This is the second such inquiry in eight years. The full recommendations of the first were not heeded.

Football in Australia stands on a precipice. It is deep in the red and living beyond its means, which is why, according to insiders I have spoken to, the FFA went to Canberra with a begging bowl to ask for assistance in staging the Asian Cup.

Part of the strategy of winning the World Cup bid involved putting itself forward to host the Asian Cup. In the final analysis it was the only candidate for 2015 but the Asian Football Confederation ground through the usual bureaucratic processes before it declared Australia the "winner".

But it's ended up a loser. Lumped with a tournament that in the past two editions has struggled to get fans through the turnstiles, despite some brilliant football being played.

With the A-League struggling enough for crowds, it's going to require a hard sell to convince locals that watching Qatar vs Indonesia or Uzbekistan vs Thailand, two imagined match-ups, is going to be worth turning up for and parting with their "hard earned". Especially when games will be shown live on TV.

No wonder the FFA has gone to the Gillard government and petitioned for more money. They're likely to take a bath financially and any government contribution will help offset those losses.

But, grants aside, some good should come out of this latest round of pen-clicking, lint-picking and navel-gazing.

Finally we might get some answers on how and why a domestic competition that was supposed to have 14 teams and a second division (at least according to Lowy's crystal ball in 2009) is instead shrinking back to 10 (one of the smallest in Asia) without any lower league and so surrendering its ambition of having four Asian Champions League places.

Australia has been to two consecutive World Cups. Its men's team made the final of the most recent Asian Cup. Its women's team won the Asian Cup. It boasts some of the best players in Asia. It has one of the strongest economies in the region. Its football should be self-sustaining. Its health shouldn't be contingent on the generosity of politicians. But it is not run as professionally as Japan or South Korea and this inquiry will hopefully get to the bottom of why.

Arbib's inquiry can be seen as a setback - and it will be, by the FFA - but in my view it's an opportunity to be seized.

The future is Asia. So if Australia wants to be a part of that future it has to start getting things right at home first. This is another chance.

You know Sepp Blatter has been in the job too long when he calls the most recent World Cup "the most splendid ever".

He should lose the FIFA presidency on that statement alone, quite apart from his prehistoric views on goal-line technology or his presiding over the prostitution of the greatest tournament in the world to the oligarchs of Russia and the sheikhs of Qatar over the better claims of England and the United States.

The problem the football world faces is there is not much of an alternative in Mohamed bin Hammam, the Asian Football Confederation boss who is as wily and political as the man he wants to replace and far less assured in front of the cameras. You couldn't find a more wooden orator than Bin Hammam.

At a time when the professional game needs to be snatched back from the rapacious clutches of Middle East money men and given a financial reality jolt, the well-connected Qatari is not the right man for the job.
Yet so desperate is the mood for change that even the English FA have thrown their support behind Bin Hammam, imploring him to stand against the Swiss incumbent.

Others will inevitably follow. Blatter made another enemy this week in FIFA executive committee member Chuck Blazer, who was infuriated by his CONCACAF confederation not receiving an increase in qualifying spots for Brazil 2014 and has suggested it could vote as a bloc against Blatter in the election.

The Americans are hopping mad with Blatter. The Australians are just as livid. The western Europeans, too, have had enough of his double talk, his empty promises and his relentless vanity.

The World Cup should always be staged by the best available host. Yet under Blatter's watch, pushing it into "new territories" is a more important consideration. Forget the heat. Forget the corruption. Forget the lack of democracy. What really matters is Blatter's legacy.

But Bin Hammam isn't that much better.

His AFC is a viper's nest of jealousies and enmities between east and west. In my view he showed lack of impartiality in the World Cup bidding process, clearly favouring Qatar over other bidders and fellow members of the AFC. And he hasn't done much about questionable elements in his own patch, such as football in Indonesia and its farcical administration.

Bin Hammam might think wearing his white suit sets him apart but it doesn't. The only thing that will set him apart is deeds. And, frankly, he hasn't done enough to be cast as a people's hero. Or at least not yet.
Should he nominate to stand against Blatter, though, he will carry an enormous amount of hope on his shoulders to deliver reform to a broken organisation and restore the faith of fans in how the game is run.

That hope is a privilege he perhaps doesn't deserve. But between now and June, the date of the election, he has time to show he is different and can offer change.

Something Blatter cannot. He lost all credibility long ago.

Kevin Muscat's recent announcement that the coming Asian Champions League would be his last hurrah as a professional footballer elicited an extraordinary response in Australia.

Here was a man who had played over 50 internationals for the Socceroos, scored a penalty in the 2001 World Cup qualifying playoff against Uruguay, captained his Melbourne Victory side to two A-League championships in 2007 and 2009. He'd amassed nearly 600 games as a professional footballer in Australia, England and Scotland over a 22-year senior career.

He was owed a fair whack of valedictory tributes, surely? Players of such durability don't come along too often. And how Australians love their sporting legends.

Instead the blogosphere was incandescent with fury. 

"One of the least skilful and most cowardly players to ever become a Socceroo," wrote one fan. "Good riddance to a disgrace to Australian football," said another.

A reader on the popular SBS website The World Game summed up the prevailing mood with this comment:  "Mr Muscat was a thug whose deliberately dangerous tackling style amounted to little more than common assault."

It was a welcome reaction and signalled a paradigm shift in an Australian sporting culture that too often makes a virtue of "playing hard" over "playing fair".

Like the protesters in Egypt's Tahrir Square, Australian fans were united in purpose and wanted to be heard. They made it clear they wanted change. That Muscat was a relic of the game's past that they would rather forget - not celebrate.

Yet rather than spend his remaining days on earth facing up to the sins he committed on the field - and Muscat committed many: Matty Holmes, Christophe Dugarry, Craig Bellamy, Adrian Zahra, to name just a few - his club wants him to assume a full-time role as assistant coach and Muscat himself wants to take over the top job when current manager Ernie Merrick retires.

Merrick says Muscat is an "ideal" candidate to take over and will be an "outstanding coach and no doubt down the track he'll be the coach of Melbourne Victory". Muscat reflects on his long career and believes "what brought me that career was playing on the edge and that winning attitude" for which "I'm not going to apologise".

The closest thing to contrition you will get from the man is this: "What I will say [is] that in trying to achieve more success, I've got to admit that I have erred."

Erred? About as convincing a mea culpa as that much-disputed quote from an unnamed Vietnam War-era American military officer who said after blowing the village of Ben Tre to kingdom come: "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it."

If he wanted to restore his standing in the eyes of the Australian football public and make restitution to the scores of opponents he has brought down over the years by "playing on the edge", Muscat would do unpaid volunteer work with Médecins Sans Frontieres or another NGO in some far-flung war zone. But that doesn't seem to be the overriding factor in his plans. Instead he is walking into a cushy coaching job with a team of young players that already has a reputation for borderline thuggery. They scarcely need to be inculcated any more in Muscat's distinctive brand of football.

Victory's management is not reading the public mood. It is not appreciating the desire of all Australian fans to see their game regarded abroad for skill, fluidity and grace - the sort of football Ange Postecoglou has consistently produced with his Brisbane Roar side this season. That is what we want the world to see.

There is something very wrong when young talented coaches bristling with ideas and ambition such as Thai Port FC's Nathan Hall or Sabah's Gary Phillips have to leave Australia to find work but Muscat, a man with next to no coaching experience and who heaped ignominy on the Australian game during his playing career, has such a gilt-edged opportunity laid on a plate.

Australia can play beautiful football. It can play fair football. But so long as players such as Muscat are rewarded with such positions that true picture is distorted and inaccurate stereotypes go on being perpetuated.

And that is the biggest shame of all.

Papua New Guinea is probably the last place a former coach of the Socceroos thinks he'll ever end up. But that is indeed where Frank Farina, coach of Australia from 1999 to 2005, is now heading after a period of personal purgatory following a drink-driving conviction and his termination as coach of Queensland (now Brisbane) Roar in 2009.

Farina would have considered himself a good bet to have landed another coaching contract in the A-League.

His Roar side had been well regarded for its attacking mien and Farina was an exceptional talentspotter: he can take credit for unearthing some sparkling young talent that other A-League sides, indeed Australia itself (Robbie Kruse at the Asian Cup) are now enjoying seeing come to fruition.

But Farina's misfortune following his dismissal in Brisbane was that he was not only seen as a throwback to another era with his off-field penchant for a drink but that the new vogue in the A-League was foreign coaches, Czech Vitezslav Lavicka having led Sydney to the title in 2009/10.

In the 2010/11 season another Czech, Franz Straka, and a Dutchman, Rini Coolen, filled two vacant coaching positions at North Queensland Fury and Adelaide United and Farina was overlooked.

He was forced to cool his heels writing newspaper columns and about the only time local fans got to see him on television was in crummy commercials for Paddy's, a Sydney market. He wasn't quite down and out in his coaching career but he was close.

Until PNG came along.

Now PNG isn't the most coveted coaching job in the world. Indeed it's right at the bottom - literally. PNG is the lowest ranked football team on the planet at #203, a position it jointly holds with the might
(cough) of San Marino, Anguilla, Montserrat and American Samoa.

But it's a new start. And even if his contract is only a short-term one - just 12 weeks in preparation for the South Pacific Games in New Caledonia, his aim a top-three finish - it offers a road back to respect for a bloke who unnecessarily frittered away what he had built up for himself professionally because of a personal mistake.

Farina is far too good and has given far too much to the sport of football to be washed up and surplus to requirements at just 46.

He joins former manager of Cambodia Scott O'Donell, Cook Islands coach Tim Jerks, Lee Sterrey and Les Scheinflug (both ex Fiji) as one of the handful of Australians to coach a senior foreign men's national side, an achievement in itself.

And with Hekari United having spectacularly qualified for the 2010 FIFA Club World Cup (where less romantically it was swiftly dispatched 3-0 by Al-Wahda), he arrives at a time when there is clear optimism about PNG's football future.

After all, when you're the 203rd-ranked side in the world, the only way is up. Coincidentally, just like Farina's stalled career.

May they both prosper.

So South-East Asia is considering throwing its hat into the ring for the 2030 World Cup. A combined bid of ASEAN nations. This was the outcome of a recent meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Lombok, Indonesia.

Football Association of Singapore president Zainudin Nordin says such an event would "raise the international profile of the region"and "unite citizens of the member nations".

Undoubtedly it would. In theory.

But I would argue South-East Asia is better advised to divert the tens of millions of dollars it would have to spend on such a quixotic bid in first addressing the problems that have bedevilled previous tournaments in the region.

The profile of South-East Asia won't be raised and nobody will be united if what happened four years ago at the Asian Cup is ever allowed to happen again.

That 2007 event, co-hosted by ASEAN member states Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, gave an insight into just how difficult it would be for South-East Asia to stage a World Cup.

Crumbling infrastructure, poor transport, lax security, chaotic organisation... and that was just in Bangkok. I can say that from personal experience because I was there and getting to (and especially

into) the Australia vs Iraq match was a challenge worthy of Indiana Jones. Fans complained to me of similar experiences at other venues.

Yet amid all this discomfort it was also great fun. In my view there is no region in the world as colourful, exotic and liberating as South-East Asia.

For fans, a South-East Asian World Cup would offer an experience on par with France or Germany, two recent World Cups that people still talk about today for the memories they took away with them. Not just the football but the complete World Cup diorama: the stuff that takes place off the field.

This is South-East Asia's most valuable asset. Its food. Its people.

Its shopping. Its hospitality. Its culture. it's why millions of people come to this part of the world every year, love it and want to come back or even stay. And, beyond purely economic reasons, it's why the World Cup will come here.

That's a fact. A South-East Asian World Cup is inevitable.

But 2030? It's pie in the sky. Asia is already hosting a World Cup in 2022, in Qatar. The United States will likely get 2026. Argentina and Uruguay in my view are entitled to expect to be granted 2030 - South America, after all, is a crucible of the game. And the next World Cup in Asia will go to China. Make no mistake: a Chinese World Cup is one of FIFA's driving ambitions.

Realistically, then, South-East Asia is going to have to wait a whole lot longer than 20 years to get its maiden World Cup.

But ASEAN's foreign ministers are to be commended for at least putting the idea out there. If they can revise their time scale and back up their rhetoric with action the dream of a South-East Asian World Cup is within reach.

Chances are, though, you and I won't be alive to see it.

One of the clear, unvarnished truths to emerge from the 2011 Asian Cup was that East Asia is breaking away from the rest of the continent when it comes to playing quality.

Three semi-finalists, two finalists, a worthy winner.

Saudi Arabia, so long a force in the West Asian zone of the Asian Football Confederation, went out in the first round, losing all three games. Kuwait, considered a dark horse by some "experts", did the same and United Arab Emirates finished the bottom of their group.

True, Qatar, Iran, Jordan and Iraq got through to the quarters and Bahrain was unlucky against Australia.

Had it been in any other group and not lumped with Korea Republic and the Socceroos, on form it would have progressed. Yet of those four West Asian quarter finalists, none could make the semis, only Uzbekistan, from Central Asia, getting through.

Perhaps the Uzbeks might wish it had never happened. Getting annihilated 6-0 by Australia is not an easy result to live down.

So in so many ways it was a tournament that underlined the strange paradox of the AFC, a confederation that is ruled by the West but made to look good by the East.

Not to mention giving added ammunition to the rumoured plans of certain disempowered member states to create their own breakaway East confederation and split the AFC in two.

But there were some positives for the West.

The performances of Jordan and Syria were gripping and between them provided the best ground atmosphere of the tournament.

Jordan, of course, was minutes away from recording a historic victory against Japan, the eventual winners, before conceding a goal at the death. This should not be forgotten.

Just as Syria also gave Japan a good shake in their Group B match in Doha, going down 2-1 and only to a late penalty from Keisuke Honda.

Afshin Ghotbi's Iran also showed it is on the right path after years of underperformance, cruising through the group round and losing to Korea Republic in injury time in their quarter-final clash. That Team Melli is losing Ghotbi to Shimizu S-Pulse is unfortunate.

It's one step forward, one step back for Iran: the Tehran tango.

Iraq and Qatar, too, gave good account of themselves against the two finalists, Australia and Japan respectively, the 2007 champions giving way in the 117th minute of their game against the Socceroos and Qatar at one point leading Japan 2-1 before finishing the game 3-2 in defeat.

The 2011 Asian Cup was not, therefore, an unmitigated disaster for West Asia. But equally the challenge has been laid down to improve for the next continental showpiece, in Australia in 2015.

AFC president Mohamed bin Hammam believes technically the two hemispheres of Asia are at the same level but mentally the East has the wood over the West.

"I think the East today, in particular Japan, Korea [Republic] and Australia, are enjoying the benefits of professionalism," he said last weekend in Doha.

"You can see that the players from these countries are more mature. They can handle the match, they can decide what they can do for a match unlike their colleagues from the West today. They panic if they are losing, and they panic even more when try to hold the results for themselves. Today, the player from East Asia is more mature than the player from West Asia."

How to arrest this discrepancy in maturity, then, in just four years?

It can start with West Asian players getting out of their comfort zone and trying their luck outside of the leagues of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia, where they are well remunerated and not pushed to their limits.

In short, some culture shock would do them a world of good and, short of landing a contract in Europe, playing in East Asia - be it the J-League, K-League or A-League - is just the ticket.

Asia is a big place, the home of all kinds of different playing styles, training methodologies and coaching philosophies.

Maturity comes with experience. And experience is gained only by being prepared to put it all on the line and fail.

That, to be frank, is what West Asian players don't do enough of. The success of the East at the 2011 Asian Cup with its finalists made up of mostly European professionals is ample evidence of the benefits of looking outward, not inward.

The West has an opportunity to catch up with the East by 2015. But for that to happen eyes need to be opened and bags need to be packed.

There's an interesting debate going on in Australia apropos Kevin Muscat's horrific two-footed lunge on Melbourne Heart's Adrian Zahra over the weekend, which will likely see the former Millwall and Wolves player and now Melbourne Victory captain sent to an early retirement when Football Federation Australia's disciplinary committee decides his penalty this Thursday.

What part does a club culture play in such onfield incidents and who's ultimately responsible?

A friend of mine, former Socceroo and now SBS-TV analyst Craig Foster, has come out and squarely blamed the Victory hierarchy for letting Muscat, to all intents and purposes, roam pitches like an untethered junkyard dog.

"There's a history at the club of violent acts," he said. "The Matthew Leckie [injury] earlier in the season by Surat Sukha is an example. When [Sukha] came here he didn't do those tackles, he learned those at the club.

"What did the club do about it? Did they make a statement that this was unacceptable behaviour? The club might not condone it but it certainly doesn't decry it. It has been built on a level of aggression."

Now no one who's seen Victory play, whether in the A-League or the Asian Champions League, can really argue with the man Australians affectionately call "Fozz".

Whether it's Muscat and his litany of indiscretions, Grant Brebner flying in with Roy Keane-style studs-up tackles or Adrian Leijer throwing his weight around like he's Dolph Lundgren, Victory's approach is clearly predicated on physical intimidation and harassment.

There are and have been genuine ball players at the club - Carlos Hernandez, Fred - but the overriding philosophy is still to make a virtue of what is done off the ball rather than what is done with it.

And for that, ultimately, the coach, Ernie Merrick, has to shoulder the blame.Merrick was quick to point out in the wake of Muscat's latest outrage that in its short history the club had been an ornament to the A-League.

"I'd like to point out that in our six seasons we've been a team that's all about playing football and playing good quality football. We've won a couple of premierships and championships in playing good football and Kevin's been a part of that. He's been a true professional with the club and so I'm hoping that he doesn't retire after an incident like that."

Yes, a couple premierships and championships is a decent return and since its foundation Victory has been the yardstick for all other A-League clubs when it comes to attendances, community engagement and relations with the business community. But I would argue its relative success on the field wasn't built on "playing good quality football".

Merrick, a prototypically dour Scotsman whose only previous managerial experience was with the Victorian Institute of Sport, is no Jose Mourinho. He only knows one way: and that is direct and physical and in Muscat he found the perfect ally to mask his deficiencies as a tactician and practitioner.

With his basic football knowledge and limited football smarts Merrick was never going to win titles playing fluid, Spanish-style passing combination football but he sure as hell had a chance to win a few games and keep his job if he had a man on the field, Muscat, who could not just monster opposition players but also school younger teammates in the no-frills English Championship way.

In return, Muscat enjoyed the privilege of being not just captain, chief enforcer and the team's spiritual figurehead but assistant coach. Merrick even anointed him to fill his own shoes at some point in the future.
And it's because of this mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship that you will never hear a bad word said by Merrick about Muscat, even when his bad lieutenant engages in behaviour that is indefensible.

"I didn't see the tackle and the send-off; I was at the far end," the manager said after Muscat had almost cut Zahra in half. "Kevin's Kevin - he does a great job for us and he's been sent off and I haven't seen the tackle."

A disgraceful comment in the circumstances. But totally expected and typical of the free rein that Muscat has enjoyed under Merrick.

So even in Melbourne loses Muscat to retirement after the FFA disciplinary committee hands down its suspension it still has the small issue of how to reculture all the demon-spawn Little Kevs that have been created under his and Merrick's watch and which are only perpetuating the sad stereotype most Asians have of Australian footballers being aggressive, mindless thugs.

And that, in my opinion, can only truly be achieved if Merrick is shown the door too.

Muscat's lack of pace wasn't the only thing exposed in this latest incident. Victory's leadership has been shown up for being what it always has been: retrograde, unsophisticated and inadequate for the times.
A wholesale change would not just be most welcome. It is an absolute imperative.

So Qatar spent nearly £30 million pounds on PR alone in the run-up to the World Cup hosting decision last December to convince FIFA (and the rest of the world) that it would make a great host of the World Cup.

More than any other competing bid for 2022 splashed out on its entire budget.

It was obviously money well spent, as Qatar snaffled the 2022 event over the much more fancied Americans and humiliated the confident Australians. There was an outpouring of joy across the Middle East - and rightly so. It was a significant moment in the history of the Muslim world.

But unless Qatar spends the same amount of money again on PR between now and 2022, all its efforts and considerable expense will be wasted.

The celebrations will turn hollow.

Because the world has gone in the space of just a month from being at least open to the idea that Qatar could pull off this crazy idea of a desert World Cup to firmly convinced that it has no chance: that 2022 is going to be a stinker.

And the blame this time doesn't lie at the feet of Sepp Blatter, who's been talking of switching the event to winter, or Michel Platini, who's floated the idea of sharing it among the emirates of the Gulf.

It rests squarely on the shoulders of Mohamed bin Hammam, the Asian Football Confederation president, who has overseen an Asian Cup that has given us a taste of just how sterile and soulless a World Cup in

11 years' time just might be.

Had he spent more time ensuring people were going to turn up to watch the football instead of shoring up his own likely challenge to Blatter at the next FIFA Congress, he and the tournament itself would be looking a whole lot better. But he has presided over a failure.

A colleague of mine in Australia and staunch defender of the Qatar bid, Scott McIntyre, went on television in Australia Monday evening and declared Qatar was a "sporting mad" nation.

That has been exposed this Asian Cup as an utter myth.

Much has been made of the poor crowds in Doha, such as the 3500 people who scattered around the 22,000-capacity Al Gharafa Stadium to see Uzbekistan play China. However, to be fair to organisers, that figure could be explained away as being reflective of a fixture that didn't involve local teams or have a captive itinerant worker population to draw on (for that reason alone abysmal India has had no such problems pulling crowds).

But how to explain the 40,000-capacity Khalifa Stadium not being filled for the do-or-die match between Qatar and Kuwait, with the winner to progress to the quarter-finals?

Two Middle Eastern sides. The host nation. Its neighbour, considered a dark horse for the tournament itself. A January event, with its pleasant outdoor temperatures - ideal for any fan. What more could the supposedly "sporting mad" Qataris want?

Instead just 28,000 turned up, symptomatic of a tournament-wide problem of more tickets being sold than seats being filled. That it was "too cold" has been proffered as an explanation. Rubbish.

Last December the world was sold the idea that football unite the Middle East in 2022, that the Qataris would be an enthusiastic, passionate host of the world's greatest sporting event.

But with so many local fans oscillating between ambivalence and disinterest at this Asian Cup, where some very good football is being played, there must be grave doubts they can deliver on that promise.

So can we all take off our rose-coloured glasses for a moment and just come out with what it is plainly obvious but only a few are prepared to say?

India doesn't belong at the Asian Cup. That much was evident last night in their opening group C match against Australia, which finished 4-0 to the Socceroos.

Plucky, yes. Courageous, yes. Hard-working, yes. But in every other facet of their game the Bhangra Boys, save their outstanding young goalkeeper Subrata Pal, were totally out of their depth.

And while it is fantastically enervating to see the country that qualified for the 1950 World Cup and was runner-up at the 1964 Asian Cup take its place again at a major tournament, the fact of the matter is the Indians are only there because the Asian Football Confederation slipped them in through the back door of the very minor AFC Challenge Cup, a competition they shouldn't have contested in the first place, being as it is designed for even lesser football nations such as Bhutan and Laos.

What an anomaly. You don't get to the World Cup by winning some two-bit competition. You get there through the rigours of a qualification campaign. Yet India bypassed that altogether because the AFC, for myriad political and economic reasons, wants football in India to flourish. As we all do.

But lumping them in the Asian Cup finals without doing the hard work that should be required to get there is the equivalent of throwing Eric "The Eel" Moussambani in the final of the 100m freestyle at the Olympics. It's a joke.

And it's a bitter pill to swallow for the much stronger football nations - Oman, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam - that by rights should be there in India's place. They all fell trying to get to Qatar 2011 by having to play much more formidable teams than any of the so-called "emerging" minnows India faced at the Challenge Cup in 2008.

Had one of them made it and taken their place among the final 16, perhaps they too could have given the Socceroos a real scare, just like Jordan did Japan, or even defeated them, like Syria did Saudi Arabia.

That's what major competitions should be about: not being able to predict a result with any surety. But India was a sitting duck. It was a mismatch - bookies Down Under had an Australian win at $1.05, a Indian win at $21. It was an invitation to make jokes about cricket scores. And the Australians, as we all expected from a team almost entirely made up of European-based professionals, coasted.

Too easy. Too predictable. The AFC might as well have just given Australia the three points and not even bothered playing the match.

But, you see, this is all part of a grand plan by the AFC to make India a football power. Playing in the Asian Cup, it believes, will give India the kickstart it needs to get its act together and realise its potential.

Wrong. Free passes and shortcuts aren't the answer. The only thing that is going to return India to a higher echelon in the Asian game is infrastructural improvement, administrative reform, professionalisation of the l-League, grassroots development, properly allocated investment and a collective will from everyone involved in Indian football to work hard and put aside personal interest to achieve that dream. Not to mention getting to the Asian Cup on merit and not through special favours.

If they can do all those things, the next time India makes it to Asia's greatest football showpiece, countries such as Australia won't take to the field knowing they've already won the game. We really will have something to celebrate and India truly will have arrived on the continental stage.

For now, though, they're nothing but pretenders.

So can we all take off our rose-coloured glasses for a moment and just come out with what it is plainly obvious but only a few are prepared to say?

India don't belong at the Asian Cup. That much was evident on Tuesday night in their opening group C match against Australia, which finished 4-0 to the Socceroos.

Plucky, yes. Courageous, yes. Hard-working, yes. But in every other facet of their game the Bhangra Boys, save their outstanding young goalkeeper Subrata Pal, were totally out of their depth.

And while it is fantastically enervating to see the country that qualified for the 1950 World Cup and was runner-up at the 1964 Asian Cup take its place again at a major tournament, the fact of the matter is the Indians are only there because the Asian Football Confederation slipped them in through the back door of the very minor AFC Challenge Cup, a competition they shouldn't have contested in the first place, being as it is designed for even lesser football nations such as Bhutan and Laos.

What an anomaly. You don't get to the World Cup by winning some two-bit competition. You get there through the rigours of a qualification campaign. Yet India bypassed that altogether because the AFC, for myriad political and economic reasons, wants football in India to flourish. As we all do.

But lumping them in the Asian Cup finals without doing the hard work that should be required to get there is the equivalent of throwing Eric "The Eel" Moussambani in the final of the 100m freestyle at the Olympics. It's a joke.

And it's a bitter pill to swallow for the much stronger football nations - Oman, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam - that by rights should be there in India's place. They all fell trying to get to Qatar 2011 by having to play much more formidable teams than any of the so-called "emerging" minnows India faced at the Challenge Cup in 2008.

Had one of them made it and taken their place among the final 16, perhaps they too could have given the Socceroos a real scare, just like Jordan did Japan, or even defeated them, like Syria did Saudi Arabia.
That's what major competitions should be about: not being able to predict a result with any surety.

But India was a sitting duck. It was a mismatch - bookies Down Under had an Australian win at $1.05, a Indian win at $21. It was an invitation to make jokes about cricket scores. And the Australians, as we all expected from a team almost entirely made up of European-based professionals, coasted.

Too easy. Too predictable. The AFC might as well have just given Australia the three points and not even bothered playing the match.

But, you see, this is all part of a grand plan by the AFC to make India a football power. Playing in the Asian Cup, it believes, will give India the kickstart it needs to get its act together and realise its potential.

Wrong. Free passes and shortcuts aren't the answer.

The only thing that is going to return India to a higher echelon in the Asian game is infrastructural improvement, administrative reform, professionalisation of the l-League, grassroots development, properly allocated investment and a collective will from everyone involved in Indian football to work hard and put aside personal interest to achieve that dream. Not to mention getting to the Asian Cup on merit and not through special favours.

If they can do all those things, the next time India makes it to Asia's greatest football showpiece, countries such as Australia won't take to the field knowing they've already won the game. We really will have something to celebrate and India truly will have arrived on the continental stage.

For now, though, they're nothing but pretenders.

So can we all take off our rose-coloured glasses for a moment and just come out with what it is plainly obvious but only a few are prepared to say?

India doesn't belong at the Asian Cup. That much was evident last night in their opening group C match against Australia, which finished 4-0 to the Socceroos.

Plucky, yes. Courageous, yes. Hard-working, yes. But in every other facet of their game the Bhangra Boys, save their outstanding young goalkeeper Subrata Pal, were totally out of their depth.

And while it is fantastically enervating to see the country that qualified for the 1950 World Cup and was runner-up at the 1964 Asian Cup take its place again at a major tournament, the fact of the matter is the Indians are only there because the Asian Football Confederation slipped them in through the back door of the very minor AFC Challenge Cup, a competition they shouldn't have contested in the first place, being as it is designed for even lesser football nations such as Bhutan and Laos.

What an anomaly. You don't get to the World Cup by winning some two-bit competition. You get there through the rigours of a qualification campaign. Yet India bypassed that altogether because the AFC, for myriad political and economic reasons, wants football in India to flourish. As we all do.

But lumping them in the Asian Cup finals without doing the hard work that should be required to get there is the equivalent of throwing Eric "The Eel" Moussambani in the final of the 100m freestyle at the Olympics. It's a joke.

And it's a bitter pill to swallow for the much stronger football nations - Oman, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam - that by rights should be there in India's place. They all fell trying to get to Qatar 2011 by having to play much more formidable teams than any of the so-called "emerging" minnows India faced at the Challenge Cup in 2008.

Had one of them made it and taken their place among the final 16, perhaps they too could have given the Socceroos a real scare, just like Jordan did Japan, or even defeated them, like Syria did Saudi Arabia.

That's what major competitions should be about: not being able to predict a result with any surety. But India was a sitting duck. It was a mismatch - bookies Down Under had an Australian win at $1.05, a Indian win at $21. It was an invitation to make jokes about cricket scores. And the Australians, as we all expected from a team almost entirely made up of European-based professionals, coasted.

Too easy. Too predictable. The AFC might as well have just given Australia the three points and not even bothered playing the match.

But, you see, this is all part of a grand plan by the AFC to make India a football power. Playing in the Asian Cup, it believes, will give India the kickstart it needs to get its act together and realise its potential.

Wrong. Free passes and shortcuts aren't the answer. The only thing that is going to return India to a higher echelon in the Asian game is infrastructural improvement, administrative reform, professionalisation of the l-League, grassroots development, properly allocated investment and a collective will from everyone involved in Indian football to work hard and put aside personal interest to achieve that dream. Not to mention getting to the Asian Cup on merit and not through special favours.

If they can do all those things, the next time India makes it to Asia's greatest football showpiece, countries such as Australia won't take to the field knowing they've already won the game. We really will have something to celebrate and India truly will have arrived on the continental stage.

For now, though, they're nothing but pretenders.

Holger Osieck's "Dad's Army" is in Qatar to win the 2011 Asian Cup but don't be put off by the zimmer frames and the walking sticks. Fans of the Australian national team were assured by a team functionary this week that "a partial regeneration of the national team" had commenced and "Australia is not holding back in its effort to win the competition".

And certainly Asia's new kids on the block should have a very good chance of improving on their quarter-final finish in 2007, going on the Matildas' breakthrough victory in the 2010 women's version of the same tournament and the swag of awards (team and individual) it took away at November's Asian Football Confederation Annual Awards in Kuala Lumpur. Good things tend to happen in threes.

With Premier League stars of the calibre of Tim Cahill and exciting in-form youngsters such as Robbie Kruse added to the mix, they're certainly not lacking in playing ability either. Only a fool would discount their capabilities. The Aussies commence their campaign against India, a side they haven't played since the 1950s, on January 11.

The key factor in determining the success of the Aussies will be how they adjust to near on a month playing in the Middle East. Typically Australian football teams don't travel well in this part of the world.

The last time the Socceroos played a Middle Eastern side in the Middle East was Kuwait in an Asian Cup qualifier in Kuwait City last January, the game finishing 2-2 with the Kuwaitis finishing all over the top of them after the Australians had scored two goals in the first five minutes.

A more recent game in Egypt in November (not technically the Middle East but close enough) saw the Australians crash 3-0.

In 2009, Australia played an unconvincing goalless draw with Qatar in Doha and only had a 2-1 victory against Oman in Muscat in November that year to show for its troubles.

In 2008, as part of qualifying for the World Cup, the Socceroos were beaten 1-0 by Iraq in Dubai, comfortably accounted for the Qataris 3-1 in Doha and got away with murder against Bahrain 1-0 in Manama, Mark Bresciano scoring in the 90^th minute to record a win they did not deserve.

In 2007, they did not play in the Middle East at all.

So, if you include the Egypt match, out of seven matches in the past three years played in the Middle East, Australia has won only three, drawn two and lost two. And those victories were against opposition that could hardly be described as the best in Asia and (aside from the 3-1 win over Qatar in 2008) procured in far from comprehensive fashion.

So combined with their poor showing at the 2007 Asian Cup in South-East Asia, it's a record that jars with the team's notoriously boastful attitude when it comes to playing in Asia.

The Socceroos are still formidable - make no mistake. But as their recent Middle East experiences prove, the mighty can and do fall when they're far away from home.

Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, the prime minister of Malaysia, recently stepped on to a stage at the Sunway Resort Hotel and Spa in Kuala Lumpur to accept the Asian Football Confederation's "Diamond of Asia" award for his services to Asian football.

"His contribution to develop the game in the continent and his determination to take Asian football to greater heights should be recognised by all the stakeholders of the game," said AFC president Mohamed bin Hammam.

Yes, a case could be made. But in my view it was unfitting: a political gong on a night that should have been about recognising football's unheralded servants, not its glorified fans, and Razak, who had already held up proceedings by turning up for the ceremony more than an hour late, went on to confirm my own misgivings by delivering a long speech not so much about football but his government and why it was positioned to lead Malaysia in this new century.

And now rather than taking Asian football to "greater heights" through promoting closer ties with Malaysia's neighbours, he's arguably aggravated relations with the biggest of them all, Indonesia, by not condemning the actions of a group of fans for using lasers to disrupt the AFF Suzuki Cup first leg final between Indonesia and Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur on the weekend.

The match finished 3-0 to the hosts but those goals were scored only after the game had been held up for eight minutes early in the second half by fans directing laser beams into the eyes of Indonesia players.

Up to that point, the match was a scoreless deadlock. The Indonesians even walked off briefly in protest.

As an Australian, I can tell you from painful experience that a delay of such a duration can have a very deleterious effect on a team's performance.

The Socceroos were cruising to victory against Iran in a World Cup qualifier in Melbourne in 1997 when the game was stopped by a crazed fan tearing down one of the goal nets early in the second half. Their rhythm and focus upset, the Aussies' 2-0 lead evaporated and the game ended 2-2, Iran going through to France 98 on the home-and-away rule.

Indonesian president Bambang Yudhoyono has requested that an official complaint be lodged - as he has every right to. Frankly, the Malaysian fans acted unsportingly and their crude behaviour in my view does not warrant Razak's uncritical comments about the result.

"I am so truly delighted with the victory," he said. "The team gave a good performance tonight and the whole nation is proud of our team."

Respectfully, Mr Prime Minister, what happened at the Bukit Jalil Stadium was shameful. Malaysia should be embarrassed. And if the result isn't declared null and void (don't hold your breath) the next best outcome is for the fans involved to be found, banned and publicly denounced. At least sports minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek had the good grace to say he was "not happy at all" with the fans' conduct.

Indonesia, Indonesia's supporters and the greater good of Asian football would appreciate some contrition.

Jerome Valcke, FIFA's general secretary, is as slippery as his boss Sepp Blatter - at least judging from comments he's made over the past two weeks regarding the proposition that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar be moved from June to January so as to avoid the volcanic heat that will greet fans and players alike in the Gulf summer.

On December 6, Valcke was quoted as saying the suggestion was not just out of the question but technically impossible because of obligations made by bidding countries, including Qatar, that the 2022 World Cup be staged to coincide with the European summer. He even had a go at outgoing FIFA executive committee member Franz Beckenbauer for having the temerity to suggest it was an option.

"Certain [people], like Franz Beckenbauer, said this weekend that we should change the calendar and put this World Cup in a winter period.

But the invitation to tender was to play this World Cup in June, and that's how it was done and countries replied on this basis."

Yet just ten days later that tune had changed dramatically. The idea of staging the World Cup in January, which was judged the optimal time to host the Asian Cup, suddenly had abundant appeal for Valcke.

"Why not? It means you open the World Cup to countries where they can never play it in June and July because it's never the right period of time.

"If you can do so, it would be a solution to open the organisation of the World Cup to a number of countries in this period which is winter in Europe but not winter in the rest of the world."

Hang on, Jerome.

What happened to the fine print of the tender process that all bidding nations were supposedly duty bound to follow to the letter?

What was the point of the Qataris investing all that time and money and making such a blather about carbon-neutral cooling technology, an idea which they sold convincingly to FIFA's executive committee? Won't all the designs for their proposed space-age stadiums, the ones we all cooed at in the expensive pitch to FIFA, now be obsolete?

Not good enough, my friend.

The 2022 World Cup was won on the basis of what was contained in the expensive Bid Books that all bidding nations were asked to prepare, the sundry visits of the inspection committee and its various technical reports and the final presentations made in Zurich.

FIFA cannot change the goalposts now just to save its own blushes at the calamitous mistake it made awarding the World Cup to Qatar.

The interests of the players and the fans might be better served by a January World Cup, but the bidding process has been well and truly exposed for the utter charade it is.

Australia, the United States, Korea and Japan should feel mightily aggrieved.

With respect, Sepp Blatter, your time is up. Enough is enough. The world game has been embarrassed by you for too long. It's time for you to go.

It would be easy for me to list your rich catalogue of screw-ups, gaffes and double crosses here, but I'll resist the temptation.

Let's just deal with the news of the past week.

Though the 2022 World Cup was won by a dressed-up sandpit called Qatar on the basis it and it alone would host the tournament, you told L'Equipe: "Australia, in its candidacy bid, proposed to give several matches to New Zealand. I think it could be the same in Qatar and that some matches could take place in nearby countries."

Whooah. Wait a minute. That wasn't part of the deal. Worse, you've totally misrepresented the Aussies. Matches in New Zealand were never part of their "candidacy bid".

Nor was the idea of switching the Cup from June to January, a topic now apparently up for discussion despite FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke's assertion after the vote in Zurich that it was never an option.

Mr Blatter, you owe all the bidders an apology for wasting their time and money on a race it appears they never had a chance of winning because of your political ambitions. The "good of the game", it seems, is a secondary consideration to your survival.

Now you've come out in the past 24 hours and warned the homosexual football fans of the world - and there are many - that if they plan to come to Qatar "they should refrain from any sexual activities".

However in the same breath you opine: "In football, we have no boundaries. We open everything to everybody. I think there should not be any discrimination against any human being on this side or that side, left or right, whatever."

Yet in your capacity as the president of FIFA, the grand overseer of its executive committee, you decide in your infinite wisdom to award the biggest sports tournament in the world to a country where even consenting to a gay sex act can have an unsuspecting person sent to the slammer for five years.

That's discrimination. The same discrimination article three of FIFA's own statutes expressly forbids: "Discrimination of any kind against a country, private person or groups of people on account of ethnic origin, gender, language, religion, politics or any other reason is strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion."

So let's put aside the volcanic heat, the incalculable boredom that awaits visitors and all the other reasons why taking the World Cup to Qatar in 2022 is a spectacularly bad idea and ask you, Mr Blatter, why FIFA is so nakedly contravening its own charter and contradicting its own values by tacitly condoning discrimination? And it's not just homosexuals that will be affected. It's women. It's Jews.

Mr Blatter - care to explain?

There is no other answer other than the fact it has lost its way, corrupted by politics, money and power.

Just as you have now lost any shred of credibility you might have had.

Australia doesn't really get much of a break from Mohamed bin Hammam.

First, the Asian Football Confederation president uses his authority as the biggest football suit in Asia to spruik the case of Qatar 2022 on his personal website - at the obvious expense of Australia and the other two Asian bids, Japan and South Korea.

Now he's determined (through the AFC's ad-hoc committee for professional football) that there will be no change in the allocation of Australian berths in the Asian Champions League for next season, the draw for which will be made at AFC House in December. A measly two it shall remain.

Meanwhile, tiny Qatar gets a third, taking Vietnam's spot, which didn't get its paperwork in order on time and was disqualified.

What have the Aussies done to cop such tough love?Is it because they threw their hat into the race for 2022?

Is it because they stuck by Wellington Phoenix when Hammam wants them excised from the face of the earth?

Is it because they happen to give professional club contracts to most of the players who make up the New Zealand national team, the same side that obliterated West Asia's dream of having Bahrain at the World Cup?

However our friends from Down Under may have managed to rile the President, they don't deserve this.

It's a joke.

Now the A-League might not be the best domestic competition in Asia but I can comfortably say it's on a par or better than Qatar's or the United Arab Emirates' (which also has three spots) and certainly not worse than China's (which has an astonishing four).

And what on earth is a West Asian nation doing taking the berth of an East Asian nation anyway?

Doesn't Australia, as a member of the ASEAN Football Federation, the same sandbox as Vietnam, have more of a legitimate claim to that spot, even with a likely downsized ten-team league in 2011?

Unfortunately Hammam can point to the success of Australian clubs in the ACL and say they haven't performed.

But that's not really an accurate reflection of their ability when you have a situation where the qualifying clubs wait a year to take part.

In 2010, Australia's representatives were Melbourne Victory and Adelaide United, on the back of their finish in the 2008/09 season in March 2009.

The 2010 ACL didn't kick off till February this year and by then, for various reasons mostly to do with off-the-park dramas, Adelaide was the 2009/10 season's bottom-placed club.

I'd prefer to see a change where the West Asian and East Asian zones, which are kept apart outside of the ACL finals, get to play one another in the group rounds. It would serve to give a far more accurate reflection of the respective abilities of Asia's many and multihued leagues than nebulous criteria such as "media" and "marketing and promotion" drawn up by the AFC's roving inspection teams.

But that would likely see Qatar brought back down to earth. And the President surely wouldn't stand for that.

Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam is desperate to raise the credibility of Asia in the eyes of the football world.

That's why we have an Asian Champions League (congratulations to Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma) to enjoy - a competition that gets better, more professional and utterly gripping with each passing year.

That's why he spends so much time shuttling around the farthest reaches of the 46-member confederation urging federations to pick up their game, modernise and reform.

And it's why next week, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, another edition of the AFC Annual Awards will take place: a lavish trophy presentation where no expense is spared.

As I see it, though, Hammam's insistence that the winner of the player of the year award attend the ceremony is not helping the Asian game get the respect it craves.

Already nominee Japan's Keisuke Honda has said he will not be attending because of commitments with his club CSKA Moscow, namely two Russian Premier League matches on November 20 and 28.

Hammam told a Japanese news agency in Tokyo on the weekend: "It is AFC's philosophy to invite only those players who can attend the awards function. If the player is absent then it is like a wedding party in which the groom is absent in front of so many guests.

"There are around 400 to 500 people waiting at the venue to hail your achievement and success but if the main guest is absent the ceremony has no value."

With respect to the President, I demur. His analogy could be better.

The AFC awards are not a wedding ceremony. There is no legal obligation to attend. After all, in Western convention at least, a groom has to be married in front of a celebrant and sign the necessary certificate of marriage to be considered married.

The AFC awards are purely honorary, recognising achievement in Asian football.

The Academy Awards, the greatest awards show on earth, does not disqualify nominees if they cannot be present to accept an award. Some of the greats of cinema - Roman Polanski,Woody Allen,Heath Ledger and others- have been honoured and acclaimed by their peers without having to step on to the stage and pump a presenter's hand.

In my view what gives the ceremony "no value", to use Hammam's expression, is the fact that an individual can step on the stage and take away a prize that should have gone to someone else were it not for this retrograde stipulation that the winner attend.

Has the AFC not heard of video? There is no reason why the winner of the player of the year award could not be beamed live into the Sunway Resort ballroom via satellite from another location in Asia or Europe and interviewed by the host of the ceremony.

Were it not for the fact the vote for the 2022 World Cup hosting rights is coming up on December 2, conceivably there would have been more pullouts by players from the four Asian bidders.

That Everton's Tim Cahill is at time of writing going to be there with matches scheduled on November 22 and November 27 (far more worrisome than Honda's commitments) is a tribute to the player's piety to the Australian cause.

Those that will be attending deserve, as Hammam says, to be celebrated for their "achievement and success".

But they shouldn't have to be there under pressure.

Less than four weeks to go until FIFA's big announcement on who will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and the tension in the air in this part of the world, just like the humidity, is so palpable you could cut it with a knife.

How the competing Asian bids - Australia, Qatar, South Korea and Japan - shall manage to sit through the AFC Annual Awards at the Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa in Kuala Lumpur in two weeks' time without incident is anyone's guess.

Before the cameras, the mood will be convivial; all smiles. Behind the scenes, the politicking and deal making will be more frenetic than ever.

If only those cameras could capture everything that really goes on.

There's enough double crossing, intrigue and subterfuge involved in bidding for World Cups to make a Jason Bourne movie - perhaps with less stunts.

It was confirmed this week that Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam will be unopposed at the AFC Congress in Doha in January as he seeks another four-year term, his third and last.

FIFA vice-president Chung Mong-joon, the heaviest hitter in Asian football next to Hammam, has made it clear he has bigger fish to fry: namely keeping Sepp Blatter on his toes and possibly challenging the Swiss septuagenarian for football's top job in May. Chung is officially seeking another term as one of Asia's representatives on FIFA's executive committee.

So Hammam's longevity in the role should be applauded.

There is no question he has overseen a period of tremendous growth in the Asian game and led the AFC to reap unprecedented profits. He has left former AFC general secretary Dato Peter Velappan, his most determined critic, eating his dust.

But there is still room for improvement. Any pretence of his own impartiality in the jockeying for FIFA executive committee votes was blown to smithereens late last month with his publishing of a column on his own website, afcpresident.com, extolling the wonders of Qatar and its readiness to host a World Cup.

Now we've all known for some time that Hammam's preference is for the 2022 World Cup to go to Qatar (after all, he is a Qatari) but his own words might as well have been written by Qatar 2022's advertising agency.

"Give Qatar the chance to host the FIFA World Cup 2022 and you will be amazed!!"

Yes, two exclamation marks.

"Qatar is the representative of the people occupying the area between Mauritania in the Atlantic, to Aden in the Red Sea; and the land of more than 350 million people," he goes on, listing how a Qatari World Cup would benefit the world economy, the fight against global warming and "consolidate the value of tolerance, respect, friendship and peace among us, the people of the Middle East".

All well and good, but Hammam's not exactly offering matching space to put forward the arguments for an Australian World Cup, a Korean World Cup or a Japanese World Cup.

No wonder Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the boss of Qatar 2022, has called Hammam "definitely our biggest asset in the bid".

In my view privately Hammam can think anything he likes about who should get the World Cup. But publicly, for a man in his position, a man who represents 46 member nations and four World Cup bidding nations, in my opinion arguably he really could be more neutral. After all, he represents Asia - not Qatar, as much he undoubtedly loves his country.

On the same website he also declares: "I love the media and respect the journalists... whether I agree or disagree with what [they publish], I always say that media are trying to achieve fairness and justice."

Yes, we are. I couldn't have put it better myself.

So I'm sure Hammam won't mind me pointing out that while football might be a game of 90 minutes with two sides of 11 players and a ball, off the pitch there's much more that can be done to make it a level playing field.

The ruddy faced, gum-chewing, boot-throwing Scotsman Sir Alex Ferguson, best known for managing a wee little club called Manchester United, has made a rather startling pronouncement: that "it is better going to the dentist" than watching the FIFA World Cup.

Sir Alex was being quizzed ahead of Man U's UEFA Champions League fixture against Bursaspor in Turkey and was speaking apropos of his feelings about how the Champions League stacked up against the greatest football tournament in the world.

Or should that be what used to be the greatest football tournament in the world?

"The Champions League has proved itself since its inception. It is better than the World Cup. It is unbelievable. There are some fantastic games.

"Yes, you have to get through the group stages before you get to the really exciting stage but it is a fantastic tournament."

Agreed. For the quality of the individual players on show, for the quality of the match-ups, nothing, not even the World Cup, surpasses the Champions League.

However what separates the World Cup from the Champions League, in my opinion, is that there is more entertainment because you never really know what's going to happen. There is a palpable sense at World Cups that anything really is possible.

Teams such as New Zealand, no hopers before South Africa 2010, set the world alight by drawing with Slovakia and Italy, their esprit de corps, dogged defending and organisation overcoming the Europeans' far superior talent.

Teams such as CFR Cluj in the Champions League, meanwhile, are nothing but cannon fodder for the big teams of England, Italy and Spain, who can afford to assemble the most expensive squads imaginable and can have the luxury of leaving nothing to chance.

National teams don't get that same privilege. While a Cristiano Ronaldo might play for Portugal or a Didier Drogba for Ivory Coast, football is not a one-man sport.

There are ten other positions on those teams that have to be filled by players eligible strictly through birth or naturalisation. And so the World Cup, naturally, is made more unpredictable. A Senegal can beat a France. A Cameroon can beat an Argentina. A Korea Republic can beat a Spain.

The equivalent very rarely happens in the Champions League.

So while we should appreciate the staggering quality of the squads that Man U, Inter Milan, Barcelona and others can boast, and of course the superlative football they collectively produce, the World Cup is still the standard bearer when it comes to delivering the greatest storylines in football.

Next time the World Cup rolls around, Sir Alex, try booking an optometrist instead.

Excuse me while I throw up in my mouth a little.

Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, has said in the wake of the ex-co bribes affair: "It is my duty to protect the reputation of football and of FIFA from any manipulation and bad behaviour."

Yes it is, Mr Blatter, which would suggest hitherto you have performed awfully in your job. Yet this anti-reformist septuagenarian wants another four-year term and expects to be anointed once again at the next FIFA Congress.

Enough is enough. FIFA needs a complete overhaul - starting straight from the top down.

What this unbecoming circus otherwise known as the World Cup bidding process has proved beyond a doubt is that there is a rotten core inside football and the so-called "good of the game" is being prostituted regularly for the personal benefit of some individuals.

Even the "good guys" are arguably complicit because it appears they tacitly allow this behaviour to go overlooked or unpunished until an enterprising investigative reporter uncovers the truth, embarrasses the organisation and forces them to change.

No one inside FIFA is exactly running to the papers to report impropriety, are they?

New revelations by former general secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen are particularly revealing of the apparent "see no evil, hear no evil" culture within FIFA.

Zen-Ruffinen was another unwitting victim of the Sunday Times sting that last week compelled FIFA to suspend Amos Adamu of Nigeria and Reynald Temarii of Tahiti.

He was recorded on tape insisting some members of FIFA's executive commitee could be corrupted either with money or women. Another he descibed as the "the biggest gangster you will find on earth".

Strong words indeed.

Zen-Ruffinen, severely embarrassed by the report, has backpedalled, claiming his comments were "impressions" and "exaggerated" but it doesn't wash - especially when it was the man's own allegations of financial mismanagement at FIFA that saw him sensationally leave the organisation back in 2002.

He was caught at an unguarded moment by two undercover reporters and it's in unguarded moments that you usually get something closely approximating the truth.

In my opinion it is Blatter himself, as the head of the organisation, that must take responsibility for this morass of unchecked sleaze that has gone on under his watch.

Next May, rather than seeking another term he should be resigning.

That would be the honourable thing to do. But it seems honour is a rare commodity at FIFA.

Even if FIFA's ethics committee isn't satisfied there is no case to answer, the serious allegations now facing two FIFA executive committee members, vice-president Reynald Temarii of Tahiti and Amos Adamu of Nigeria, should hopefully signal an end to the way hosting World Cups are won and lost.

No one, least of all the game itself, is enhanced by the process.

Hundreds of millions are dollars are wasted on gifts and junkets, many hundreds more on "football development" projects that aren't designed for the benefit of humanity but - let's not mince words - to procure as many ex-co votes as possible.

In my view it is nothing more than a drawn out, indulgent, secretive, cynical orgy of backscratching and favour-currying that tarnishes the name of FIFA in the eyes of fans and buttresses the perception that the organisation exists not for the greater good but for corpulent, overindulged men in suits who are only in it for one thing:themselves.

If FIFA is really serious about being an organisation that is truly democratic and open and transparent and reflects the will of the fans it would have room for some sort of committee that seeks, collects and expresses the views of football supporters all around the world; one that isn't beholden to vested interests, hijacked by commercial imperatives or influenced by old boys' networks.

Many professional football clubs have fans' committees. Why not FIFA?

It already has two dozen committees of varying efficacy and importance. Yet nothing exists that speaks for the sector of the "football family" that really matters. Us.

A FIFA fans' or supporters' committee would be a significant gesture of conciliation from a governing body that has lost the confidence of its true constituency.

A gesture of conciliation as well as a long overdue admission that it has not done enough to be as open and transparent as it likes to think it has.

Listen to Sepp Blatter drone on about tradition then listen to fans about what they want to see in the game (innovations such as goal-line technology, for instance). It is obvious there is a significant disconnect generationally, emotively and intellectually between the people making the decisions and the people who are most affected by them.

FIFA likes to think it acts in the interests of the fans and everything it does is for "good of the game". But if that is so, how can it then singularly ignore the most important asset it has?

The game is nothing without fans. So how can FIFA, the game's highest body, be anything without them?

It is bloated yet unrepresentative. Out of touch yet more powerful than it has ever been before.

Fans realise the need for a body such as FIFA but have very little faith in it - and at the present time they shouldn't.

Yet that could be ameliorated if it showed it really cared about what fans think and had a formal process to listen to what they were saying.

Of course, FIFA has a million reasons to want to go on ignoring fans.

They will be told things they don't want to hear and might be asked to change.

But I don't see it has much of a choice. Something has to change.

The allegations against Temarii and Adamu are not the first of their kind. Corruption has been going on for decades, mostly unpunished, never to see the light of day. Only because of fearless journalists and editors do we ever get to hear about it.

For many, FIFA is nothing but a clubhouse for corruption, nepotism and secrecy. That is not fitting for a game that is supposed to be beautiful.

If it cares what the fans think, it will embrace them. Not continue shunning them. If it makes a genuine effort to reach out to our community (I am a fan as much as anyone else), then we, as supporters of the world game, have less reason to be suspicious of its motives.

The "good of the game" can be served through such a rapprochement.

FIFA - what happens next is up to you.

Is Chung Mong-joon a white knight or a wolf in sheep's clothing?

No doubt being a billionaire carries with it some lupine personality traits - huge ego being one of them, in my experience of billionaires - but anyone who throws his hat into the ring to take on Sepp Blatter for the FIFA presidency is in my view a people's hero of Robin Hood proportions.

Chung, a FIFA vice-president, used a keynote address at the "Leaders in Football" powwow in London to restate the possibility he would take on Blatter in the FIFA elections in May, saying it was "healthy" to have competition.

"To keep an organisation like FIFA healthy, you need competition," he said. "You need challenge and competition at the summit of anything - FIFA or the summit of a mountain. We need to keep FIFA healthy.

"The world football family has to encourage competition. There are good people among existing FIFA executive committee members. You must encourage competition. We could have a candidate from Asia or other confederations. We had better try to find good competition and good candidates."

You had better indeed. For the sake of the game.

No one in football has the proverbial balls to take on Blatter but Chung clearly does. His words right now are vague but no one should underestimate them. They are a very real threat to Blatter's authority.

And could take on a whole new dimension should Korea, one of the bidding nations for the 2022 World Cup, go out quickly when FIFA's executive commitee votes on December 2.

This week Korea 2022 made a massive play for ex-co love by announcing a US$777million slush fund to be disbursed to "less developed and developing FIFA member associations and confederations" between 2011 and 2022 should Korea get up.

An astonishing $170 million alone will be allocated to CONCACAF, the confederation controlled by Jack Warner and the home of the favourite for 2022, USA.

It's clear CONCACAF has become ground zero in the fight for the World Cup. Fellow 2022 bidder Australia was in the Caribbean last week, promising its own "football development" package to Jamaica, but using a portion of Australia's foreign aid budget.

The difference is Korea's pledge will be funded by business and philanthropists, not taxpayers' money.

Chung's decision to run could also be helped by what happens to CONCACAF's push to attain four places for the 2014 World Cup, which Warner vowed to deliver at the 2010 CONCACAF Extraordinary Congress in Port of Spain. Currently they have 3.5.

Blatter said at the launch of the FIFA Goal Project in Jamaica last month that giving CONCACAF four spots "will be a struggle, but the hope is that we will find a diplomatic solution that will allow all confederations to be represented proportionately to their past performances at the World Cup".

But now with Chung on his back, Blatter knows that finding a "diplomatic situation" could well determine his own survival. A slighted Warner could be Chung's most formidable ally.

From being a no-hoper in the race for 2022, Korea is now very much in the mix.

As always, football's an amazing game, on and off the pitch. Don't take your eyes off it for a minute. You never know what's going to happen next.

On Monday afternoon, Football Federation Australia proudly blew its own horn when prime minister Julia Gillard met FIFA president Sepp Blatter in Switzerland.

It issued a press release, FFA chairman Frank Lowy declaring the summit of Gillard and Blatter "demonstrates the government's unwavering support for our bid and shows FIFA how serious Australia is about hosting the biggest sporting event in the world... we are now entering the business end of the race for 2022 and the government's support is more important than ever".

The business end indeed.

Because at the same time across the Atlantic, down in the Caribbean in Kingston, FFA head of international and corporate affairs John Boultbee was putting pen to paper on a Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) with the Jamaican Ministry of Youth Sports and Culture and the Jamaica Football Federation.

Boultbee was photographed by the Jamaica Observer flanked by Peter Hargitay, the man the FFA hired to deliver them the World Cup in 2022, JFF president Horace Burrell and sport minister Olivia Grange.

There were no press releases about this meeting.

While domestic Australian football is rapidly going down the toilet, the Australian government is (with the FFA's enthusiastic encouragement), according to the report in the Observer, tipping in AUD$60 million of taxpayers' money into promoting social development in the Caribbean, a proportion of which will be spent by the ministry, the JFF and CONCACAF, the confederation controlled by Jack Warner.

The big question is why.

Won't have anything to do with the fact that FIFA's executive committee votes on the hosting rights of the 2022 World Cup on December 2 and Warner controls an important bloc of votes?

Or is it what the FFA will want us to believe: that this is just all part of an overall aid initiative announced by former PM Kevin Rudd at the 2009 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Warner's home country of Trinidad and Tobago, when he said sport helps "achieve important social development objectives, especially where young people are involved"?

You can make up your own mind, but I think it's worth noting the Observer's line: "Negotiations leading up to the signing of the MOU were initiated by senior strategy advisor to Australia's FIFA2022 World Cup bid and the FFA, Peter Hargitay."

Hargitay is not a public servant working for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He is a freelance fixer for countries wanting to win World Cups.

It is also worth noting the amount of money involved in Australia's embrace of the Caribbean.

If the figures are true in the Observer report, it's more than ten times what the Australian government donated in July to "football-delivered" aid in Oceania, the federation right on Australia's doorstep.

There's nothing wrong with aid. It's a good thing if the intentions behind it are noble and the money is spent effectively.

But why is the Caribbean getting so much when the Pacific, to which Australia owes much more beneficence, gets relative crackers?
Strike you as strange? It does me.

Let's hope when this whole bidding circus is over that there is a real push for change in how World Cups are won. But that won't ever happen if the people running the show aren't brought to account.

In my view, they should be. This all getting too much to bear.

Asia's flagging prospects in the race for the 2022 World Cup have come down to a two-horse race between Qatar and Australia, with Qatar at time of writing probably marginally ahead simply due to good publicity.

It's amazing what a Zinedine Zidane or Roger Milla can buy you.

The fact that South Korea and Japan are also bidding seems to be an afterthought, the vast majority of football fans not even aware the co-hosts of 2002 have thrown their hats into the ring once again but in their own right.

Japan wants to utilise 3D holographic technology to transmit matches to 400 pre-selected "Universal Fan Fest" sites in 208 countries around the world, all the action captured from every angle by an army of high-definition cameras.

In addition, special video cameras will allow fans to choose how they want to view games by being able to select any angle they so desire.

Suminori Gokoh, the chief director of the bid, says: "Our starting point is to deliver the joy of football not only to the hosting country, but all over the world."

A nice pitch. Essentially, it's bringing virtual reality to the World Cup and taking the most important and lucrative medium of the tournament - images on television - to another level of interactivity, profitability and democratisation to an even bigger audience.

An initiative worth applauding.

Yet for all its groundbreaking nature it's not totally realised and this is Japan's biggest problem. The technology might good look in video presentations and appear promising in the various tests being conducted but it's a long way from being failproof.

Wanting FIFA to take such a leap of faith now is arguably asking them to take too much of a risk.

South Korea, by contrast, is playing the "legacy" card, with suggestions a 2022 World Cup on the Korean Peninsula could be the catalyst for reunification between North and South and so resolve the planet's most intractable political dispute.

"A 2022 Korea World Cup will be devoted to peace in Asia and the rest of the world," says Korean bid leader Han Sung-joo. "To further this end, we hope to hold some games in North Korea. FIFA seems to consider what legacies each World Cup can generate in deciding on the host nation. The promotion of peace in Asia is one of the best legacies that the World Cup could bring."

Like the Japanese bid, it's a grand idea and eminently worth working towards but fatally short on detail.

If the two Koreas had shown more willingness to cooperate without the carrot of a World Cup dangling before them, by rights the bid would be far better placed right now than it presently is.

The brutal truth is they haven't, being bogged down in an endless succession of petty disputes for over half a century, and FIFA's executive committee isn't so stupid as to fall for it.

The two East Asian World Cup bids might be ahead of their time but they're also two steps ahead of reality. Their day will come - but, I'm sorry to say, it won't be in December.

The Australian 2022 World Cup bid has taken some succour from comments made by Harold Mayne-Nicholls, FIFA's inspection chairman for World Cup bids, who was speaking after a three-day fact-finding mission in Qatar, that the Arab nation presented "logistical challenges" because of its size.

Australia, of course, has no such problems. It has more land than it knows what to do with. What is a real thorn in its side is the fact its domestic competition, the A-League, is in dire trouble just six seasons in. A record Australian-low gate of just 2037 people saw Gold Coast United play Central Coast Mariners at Skilled Park in Queensland last weekend, financially strapped Newcastle United could go under any minute and the mooted 12th team to come in to the comp in 2012, Sydney Rovers, looks like it will never see the light of day.

No matter how much Football Federation Australia likes to dress it up with talk of the tough economic times and the mitigating factor of finals football being played in the rival codes of Australian Rules and rugby league, it's a black mark on the Australians' assurances it can successfully host a World Cup. If it can't manage its own league, how can it manage the biggest sporting event on earth?

Unfortunately for Qatar and Australia, the Americans have the bid that looks unassailable.

It doesn't need the gimmick of a high-profile ambassador like Qatar 2022's Zinedine Zidane playing the Middle East legacy card or the Australians' faintly desperate call for a "volunteer army".

The USA bid, which is still in for 2018 and 2022 unlike Australia and Qatar, has everything built, operational and ready to go. It has a big population, the distinction of being able to say it has already hosted the most attended World Cup ever (even when it was just a 24-team tournament) and, most importantly, can point to its own domestic competition and hold it up as a great success.

The tinpot Qatar Stars League and embattled A-League pale in comparison to Major League Soccer, which is going from strength to strength. Five years ago the MLS had 10 teams. The league will expand from its present number of 16 teams to 18 in 2011 with the addition of Vancouver Whitecaps and Portland Timbers, go to 19 in 2012 with the arrival of Montreal Impact, and likely hit 20 in 2013 with the reloaded New York Cosmos.

This week there was also the announcement that the city of Macedonia, Ohio, was considering building a new, purpose-built, 25,000-capacity US $165 million stadium. Ohio already boasts Columbus Crew, league champions in 2008 and operating out of 20,500-capacity Columbus Crew Stadium in Columbus.

Worse for Australia and Qatar, the fledgling plans of China to make its own World Cup bid for 2026 just makes an already formidable USA bid an utter no-brainer.

Australia has gone for glory without doing the hard yards. It thinks just employing expensive European-based consultants will do the trick. Qatar, for its part, is clearly of the belief if you throw enough money at something anything, even changing the weather, is possible.

Both are naïve strategies. The Americans, by contrast, have shown the value of perseverance, vision, diligence, sound management and scrupulous planning.

If merit counts for anything with FIFA's World Cup bid inspection team, the United States will be granted its second World Cup on December 2 in Zurich.

While the A-League was burning last week from low attendances, lousy press and the looming immolation of a 12th team, Sydney Rovers, because of lack of start-up capital, Football Federation Australia chief executive Ben Buckley was in China, trying to defuse what the FFA regards as an even bigger crisis: the Chinese making a bid for the 2026 World Cup.

Australian football has pegged its future on winning the hosting rights to the 2022 World Cup and spent a considerable amount of taxpayers' money in the process. 

The worst imaginable scenario for the FFA is China coming in for 2026, because the People's Republic is the mother goose of Asia.

All the reasons Australia is pushing for its own World Cup are magnified a hundredfold with a Chinese World Cup.

Furthermore, a Chinese tilt affords world body FIFA the luxury of a trifecta of profit-generating World Cups - 2018 in Europe, 2022 in the United States and 2026 in Asia - to compensate for the relative financial blood-bath it'll take on South Africa 2010 and Brazil 2014.

Who would bother, then, even countenancing the idea of having a World Cup in Australia? 

What Buckley achieved on his flying visit we will likely never know because, as he told the Sydney Morning Herald's Sebastian Hassett on Tuesday like the seasoned suit he is, "I won't comment about my international trips but I will say we are in the process of establishing friendly relations with a lot of our counterparts in Asia."

Which is code for: "We are buttering up our Asian friends to support our World Cup bid any which way we know how."

Well and good, Ben. But it smacks of desperation and the timing couldn't have been worse, reinforcing the widespread perception Down Under that the FFA only cares about the World Cup and is letting the A-League perish from neglect.

If Buckley had spent more time sorting out the game's problems on his own patch and turning the A-League into an ornament for Asian football and less on such wasteful shuttle diplomacy missions, the Australian bid might just be looking alright on its own merits and not have to do "deals" with other Asian countries.

Instead the Australian league is at its lowest ebb in six seasons and fans, media, sponsors and the clubs themselves are very worried.

Compare to the United States, whose own domestic league, Major League Soccer, is on a major upswing and will be a 20-team competition by 2012. Australia can't even get its 12th team on the park.

Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam said in Delhi this week that China will only make a bid for the World Cup "if Asia fails to win it in 2022". If he was trying to allay the concerns of Australia, Qatar, Japan and South Korea he did a poor job of it.

The fact of the matter is that on every available indicator Asia will fail to win 2022. 

In my view it will go to the United States, a far more deserving and attractive candidate than its key rival Australia because it has spent a lot of time and effort getting its local product right. The Aussies, demonstrably, have not.

Above all else, it's this, their own inertia on the home front, that has left the door wide open for a 2026 World Cup in China.
And no amount of wheeling and dealing can cover that up.

The Indian national football team, also known as the Bhangra Boys, weren't given any respite against Thailand during the week and things aren't going to get any easier for them when they rock up in Qatar for the Asian Cup in January.

The 2008 AFC Challenge Cup winners got the worst of draws, up against Korea Republic, Australia and Bahrain in Group C.

Thailand coach Bryan Robson made a point of addressing the Indians' fitness after the match in Bangkok, which ended with a 1-0 win to the Thais. The return match is being played in New Delhi on Wednesday.

"It is not that my players are well built, they are physically a lot fitter than their counterparts," he said. "Thai players can beat the Indians in speed.

"If you look at the South Asian teams, they have moved up in Asian football and world football only because they are quick on the field.

"Look at teams like Japan and the two Koreas, they can outrun any team in terms of speed on any given day.

"Players should have the stamina to run the length and the breadth of the field for more than 90 minutes. I feel if the Indian players work hard on their stamina they can really do well."

Encouraging words but damning at the same time.

How Indians, renowned for their work ethic, can be lagging behind the rest of Asia in such a basic preparation as fitness is almost incomprehensible, especially when you consider India was shaping up as a football power in the early part of the 20th century, qualified for the 1950 World Cup and put Australia to the sword on their Antipodean adventure in 1956, defeating the Aussies 4-2 at the Melbourne Olympics and 7-1 in a friendly in Sydney.

Australia has since got its act together, played in three World Cups and broken into the world top 20. India has never played in a World Cup (it pulled out of the 1950 tournament) and is #138 in the latest FIFA rankings. Obviously a lot of things have gone wrong in the intervening five decades.

More scandalously, though, India is going to Qatar on the basis of having won the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup for "emerging nations".

Thailand, 34 players higher in the FIFA rankings, won't be, having failed to get through the much tougher Asian Cup qualifying rounds. Work that one out.

While Robson is understandably miffed, Houghton is right to be a little nervous.

"There is a view that [being at the Asian Cup] will be good for Indian football as it will put ourselves in the spotlight and we will play against teams that have just played in the World Cup. Or it could show people where we really are and that might set the game back."

My feeling is India will indeed get pumped in all three of its matches, casting Mohamed bin Hammam's decision to give them free passage to Qatar in an unflattering light, which is how it should be seen by all concerned.

They are not up to Asian Cup standard and have taken the spot of another team that would have enhanced the competition rather than embarrassed it.

When your own coach is worried to show the rest of Asia "where we really are" you know they are riding on hope and nothing else.

But if they follow Robson's advice and manage to get fit at the very least they might be able to lose a little less heavily while looking like a professional football team.

If they arrive in the Middle East without having put in the hard yards, they're going to be in for a nasty wake-up call.

A momentous day in world football with the news overnight that Australia's A-League has decided to ban not just one but two players for simulation, Perth Glory's Michael Baird and Central Coast Mariners' Patricio Perez.

I cannot think of a time when two players were punished retrospectively with video evidence for diving, let alone one.

You'll remember, of course, Arsenal's Eduardo da Silva was banned for two UEFA Champions League matches for a blatant dive to earn a penalty in against Celtic in 2009. But he never served the time, inexplicably winning on appeal because "it was not established to the panel's satisfaction that the referee had been deceived in taking his decision on the penalty".  

All leagues should be following Australia's hard line on diving and it's no surprise to me the year's first real shot in anger against diving was fired Down Under: Australians have no appreciation or tolerance of what Italians and South Americans might call "cunning". They regard it as something else altogether: cheating.

They were, of course, the nation that was cruelly knocked out of the 2006 World Cup when Fabio Grosso fell over Lucas Neill like he'd been shot in the back of his legs with a pellet from a BB gun. So they know a good dive when they see it.

The best thing about the way the Aussies are going about their campaign against simulation, though, is unlike in Europe there is no right of appeal. The decision of the Match Review Panel is final. Lawyers can't be engaged to stall the proceedings. The judgment handed down is absolute. Clubs might have a necessary gripe with this denial of due process, but they should suck it in hard.

Tougher rules aligned with stiff punishment means that unlike anywhere else in the world (only Scotland's FA has a similar retrospective "trial by video" system in place) Australia has a real chance to stamp out diving from its league altogether.

If players know they stand virtually no chance of getting away with diving when video footage is scrutinised, and there is no way out if they get banned, then they will stop doing it in the first place - what follows then, through natural evolution, is cultural change within the game.

That's what football around the planet needs more than anything.

It's the players themselves that have to stop, think about what they're doing and resist the devil.

If even one player thinks twice the next time an opportunity to dive presents itself, then this unwinnable war can be won.

Melbourne Victory's Kevin Muscat should be called to account for his taunting of North Queensland's Eric Akoto in Sunday's gripping 2-2 draw at AAMI Stadium in Australia's A-League.

If you haven't seen the vision, at one point Muscat held his nose and waved his hands in front of his face as if to suggest Akoto smelled bad.

This might be schoolyard sort of stuff, to be laughed off, but the problem here is Akoto is black. A naturalised Togolese, born in Ghana.

One interpretation, quite valid, is that Muscat was inferring that, as a footballer, Akoto stank. Another, equally valid, is more sinister. Racism in football or even the slightest impression of racism in football is no joking matter.

Eventually Akoto had had enough of Muscat's dirty brand of gamesmanship and pushed him over in the 82nd minute when he lost his mouthguard and Muscat, according to some accounts, stood on it.

Scottish referee Mark Boyle sent off the African for violent conduct. He faces a two-match ban.

Fury has lodged an appeal with Football Federation Australia, saying it "believes this was not an act of violent conduct" and wants "the card to be overturned based on the referee making an obvious error".

They have next to no chance. Even though Muscat milked his fall, and admitted as much (isn't that simulation, ref?), a shove is a shove.

But it's an injustice.

In my opinion, Muscat is a lout and a blight on the game.

He's been verbally harassing players on football pitches and worse ever since he was a teenager.

Former Socceroo Scott Ollerenshaw told me in Malaysia last year that they came up against each other in the old National Soccer League and Muscat, many years his junior, wasted no time in belittling his appearance and casting aspersions on his sexual prowess.

Two decades on he's still up to his old tricks. A mouth out of control.

A man who thinks the sanctum of the white line protects him from rebuke and sanction. And Melbourne Victory fans hold him up as a "leader". What tosh.

I cheered when Akoto pushed Muscat over. He deserves to be pushed over more often. Unfortunately, though, the system protects the player doing the provoking and punishes the player who succumbs to it.

Muscat called his verballing of Akoto "a bit of banter". Banter, Kevin, is speaking to or addressing someone in a playful, teasing or good-natured way. It's normal for it to be welcomed.

Ask Akoto and other players what they think of your "banter" and they'll give you another word for it.

It's time for it to stop.

How long can Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam keep ignoring the New Zealand-into-Asia issue, which, ghost-like, has been wandering the corridors of AFC House in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, since mid 2009?

Everyone knows its real and refuses to go away but won't admit its existence, especially Hammam, who laughs it off with unbecoming disdain.

But even the iron-willed Qatari would have been at least a little privately spooked this week with news that Oceania Football Confederation president Reynald Temarii was getting ready to lobby FIFA for a full spot for Oceania at the next World Cup - at the expense of Asia.

New Zealand, you see, was undefeated at the World Cup, got there by way of defeating an Asian team, Bahrain, and need we bring up what happened to DPR Korea against Portugal?

Because of Hammam's dithering on New Zealand, Temarii has seized his chance to use the Kiwis to his own advantage when, really, it should have been the other way around.

Hammam should have held up the All Whites' success at South Africa as an example of the benefits absorbing Oceania into Asia could bring and made the necessary overtures to his OFC counterpart as a matter of urgency.

Asia's allocation of 4.5 spots was always going to be under scrutiny, despite the AFC president's protestations that they are "fully protected".

Really? By what, Mr President? Sepp Blatter's assurances? We've seen in the past they don't count for much.

Absorbing Oceania into Asia would give the AFC five spots instantly and, through splitting it into East and West, then gift Hammam the opportunity of providing the West Asian teams a guaranteed berth at the World Cup finals.

I've recommended a 2.5:2.5 split between East and West in previous columns, but can see 1.5:3.5 also working on the basis of rewarding Asia's top teams, which all currently come from the East.

Oceania, including New Zealand, would be accommodated in the East Asia zone, the Kiwis going straight into normal AFC World Cup qualifying group rounds and the remaining former OFC nations participating in a pre-qualifying round robin tournament, the winner advancing to the AFC qualifying group rounds for Brazil 2014.

Mathematics aside, the point is Hammam had a rare chance to make history and blew it.

Now Temarii, keen to shore up his own position, wants to bump up the OFC's existing half spot to one, bypassing Asia altogether - and using New Zealand as his bargaining chip.

Temarii has already warned off the Kiwis from joining Asia, which should be a clear enough sign to Hammam of the value the team represents, no matter what confederation they play under, and how worried he is himself that they will be lost. Without New Zealand, the OFC is nothing.

Yet with New Zealand, the AFC can be stronger than ever and ensure the extinction of a confederation that no one in football wants, other than Temarii and a few other football officials on the South Pacific FIFA gravy train.

For the good of the game, for the good of Asia, for the good of New Zealand and the good of all the Pacific in a brand-new East Asia zone of the AFC, it's time for Hammam to lay down the welcome mat to Oceania.

Harry Kewell is an ornament not just to the game in Australia but around Asia. At his peak, in the early noughties, he was one of Europe's biggest stars and had his pick of any club.

Unfortunately the former Leeds, Liverpool and now Galatasaray player had a career blighted by injury and the two World Cups he's been to have been attended by all sorts of drama about his fitness, the influence of his agent and his value to the team.

Undoubtedly Kewell is Australia's greatest ever export but is his time up? Is he a dividing influence on team harmony? Is he really worth all the hassle?

The view of one of Australia's more prominent football journalists, Michael Cockerill, of the Sydney Morning Herald and Fox Sports, is that he's become a liability and a sideshow and Cockerill wrote as much during the World Cup, when Kewell was being shielded from the media.

"Two minutes on the park in the past six months. That's all we've seen of Harry Kewell, the footballer," he said.

"Harry Kewell the fashionista, however, we've seen everywhere. Cover stories in magazines such as Good Weekend, Sport & Style, Emporium, and InStyle. Thousands of words written elsewhere. Front page of both dailies when the Socceroos kicked off their World Cup against Germany. Talk, talk, talk. A compliant, obsequious media lapping it all up.

"At times in his career, Kewell has been a genuine star. And his long, arduous battle to keep his body together remains a tribute to his bravery and resilience. But he's never been able to accept his diminished circumstances. Instead, he's chosen to deflect the scrutiny with hype. Kewell Inc is on the way up. Kewell, football player, is on the way down. And has been for years."

This sparked an enormous barney not just with Kewell, who fronted a pack of reporters after training before the Ghana match (in which he was sent off) and demanded Cockerill show his face, and Kewell's agent, Bernie Mandic, who penned a riposte published in the Herald, attacking Cockerill for being "beyond papal infallibility" and indulging in "vindictive fantasy".

Now Kewell's old mate and teammate Robbie Slater has joined the fray, writing in his syndicated Sunday Telegraph column that Kewell step down or be sacked from the Socceroos for the sake of the team. Slater reports that an unnamed teammate of Kewell in South Africa rounded on the player at a farewell dinner in South Africa and, in no uncertain terms, told him to "f*** off" and that his number was up.

"Kewell has been put on a pedestal for years," Slater said. "Now it's time for him to call it quits with the Socceroos. Even some of his teammates have had enough of the circus... while Harry has been a wonderful player for a very long time, I believe that there's little point selecting him for future Australian teams."

An extraordinary opinion coming from Slater, someone who played with Kewell and socialised with the man, but in my opinion premature.

There's no question Kewell isn't the player he used to be and he does attract more than his fair share of attention from the media, in turn creating a circus around the squad that no one needs, but even a diminished Kewell is a far better player than many of his fully fit, younger teammates.

As for the circus, Tim Cahill is a far bigger diversion and I would question if his seemingly self-anointed role in the team as the new "star player" is more deleterious to team harmony than Kewell's.

Quite simply, Kewell is being used as a scapegoat for the failure of the Australian team at South Africa 2010, a failure that is a shared one and that, ultimately, if heads are to roll, should be seen as a dereliction of duty by team management.

The personalities in the team - and there are strong ones - were not managed well. They were allowed to get away with too much off the park and so took that egotism and sense of arrogance on to it, where, over three games, they underperformed.

Kewell, at 31 and newly re-signed with Galatasaray, still has a lot to give the national team. He's a fine young man who's often misunderstood and who has paid a price for the level of his success as a footballer and a commercial product. With success comes jealousy and Australians are known as much for their horrible glee in taking down "tall poppies" as they are for their fighting spirit.

Germany 2006 and South Africa 2010 were personal disappointments for Kewell, so it's only natural he's aiming to go out at Brazil 2014 on a high note. 

Rather than denigrate him, we should be applauding his ambition. As one of Asia's greatest ever players, I think it's the very least we can do.

Mohamed bin Hammam doesn't like them or want any bar of them, but I've become a big fan of Wellington Phoenix, the "Australia" New Zealand side in Australia's domestic competition, the A-League.

The Asian Football Confederation president regards them as pests on his own patch, Asia, and taking a narrow view of where they come from, New Zealand, a part of the Oceania Football Confederation, they are.

What right do they have to play in Australia, a part of the AFC? They should be thankful that Hammam and his AFC cohorts have granted them approval to continue playing in the A-League until 2016 when all signs were they were going to be turfed out on their ear as early as 2012.

Shouldn't they?

Well, no. Wellington have every right to play in the Australian competition, just as Etoile FC have a right to play in Singapore and the Harimau Muda have a right to play in Slovakia. Borders in football are becoming irrelevant and can always be navigated around.

What's important is that the quality of football fans in Asia are seeing week in, week out, is improving and becoming more professional - Hammam's mantra. And Wellington is delivering all that and more.

Last season they made the finals for the first time last and fell just one match shy of the grand final. They get bumper crowds. They engage their community. They have a creative and courageous recruitment policy, turning other clubs' discards into heroes.

And now they've lured the biggest star in Indonesia, Bambang Pamungkas, to the North Island for what officially is a trial but in reality is an opportunity to push a contract and pen across a desk and ask him to sign on the dotted line.

As one club official told me last week, Bambang just needs to be able to show he can kick a ball and he's got himself a contract.

Wellington knows what Bambang can bring the club not just for his football ability but his commercial profile in South-East Asia.

They are being very shrewd.

But they are also delivering exactly what Hammam wants: giving Asian players a chance to raise their standards of performance in a more professional environment. And they're not even, officially at least, an Asian club.

So instead of continuing to punish Wellington for their success, Hammam should be capitalising on it and embracing them as an example to all other clubs in Asia of what can be achieved with some industry, perseverance and - the AFC's catchcry - vision.

He should have the presence of mind to realise they're not embarrassing him. They're actually making him look good.

Bravo to new France coach Laurent Blanc.

The man certainly has steel in his veins. To cut all 23 of the players that were involved in the infamous World Cup strike takes a good deal of courage and some more of self-confidence.

A week ago all indications were he would leave the mutineers alone and turn a blind eye to their betrayal of the French nation.

Instead he has made a statement of his authority, a move of great integrity and made it clearly plain France wants to and will change its image as a bunch of squabbling, entitled, overpaid cheats and braggards and be seen at some time in the future as worthy world champions.

Raymond Domenech should have made some tough decisions in the wake of the "Hand of Gaul" incident at the Stade de France in November 2009.

Like sacking Thierry Henry for bringing shame on France. Like sacking himself for the way he carried on after the match against Republic of Ireland, displaying a contemptible and astonishing lack of contrition to the Irish.

"We are happy," he bragged. "Everyone who loves French football is happy. To take part in something like that is brilliant. And now? Leave me to savour this, leave the players and everyone who supported me to benefit from this."

Brilliant? Getting to a World Cup by handballing twice under the nose of a referee and his assistants and the billions of people who saw it?

The French people detested his arrogance and the French players didn't want a bar of him but inexplicably he had the necessary support within the French Football Federation itself to ward off calls for his head and even a vote of no confidence.

How France's campaign in South Africa could have been so different had Blanc been appointed at the beginning of the year.

There would have been no mutiny. There would have been some esprit de corps. There would have been acknowledgment simply through Blanc's appointment and Domenech's departure that the FFF was embarrassed by what happened in Paris.

There would have been a sense of release from the guilt and attendant shame that came with the manner of France's qualification. Les Bleus wouldn't have been such a stain on the World Cup.

Instead Henry wasn't suspended. He went to the World Cup. Domenech wouldn't budge. He went to the World Cup, taking with him a group of players that did not believe in him and didn't want to play for him.

Blanc, a great player for France and a brilliant coach for Bordeaux, was made to cool his heels and wait. What happened in South Africa was always going to happen.

Karma, perhaps, but the French people never deserved to see their national team reduced to an international laughing stock. What they deserved was change.

In Blanc, they've finally got it - belatedly. Not nearly enough - the FFF should be reformed from the top down - but it's a start and his actions this week were a sign of his fresh approach and his willingness to make amends to those who matter most: the fans.

May he and the French nation enjoy every success.

And so we return to club football, where down under the A-League is gearing up for season six.

New seasons mean new promotion campaigns on TV and the latest Football Federation Australia ad for Australia's domestic competition is a beauty: titled "Fan Made", you can find it on YouTube.

It features a group of black-hooded young men, all menace, all Clockwork Orange machismo, walking into a textiles shop looking like they're casing the joint or about to pull off a robbery.

Instead, they order 680 square metres of material for, bada boom, their "pullover", those enormous rolling unfurled banners we've all become accustomed to seeing at important football games, be it in Asia, Europe, South America - anywhere football is played.

It's a clever ad and a vast improvement on previous A-League campaigns that were all glitz but lacked a clearly defined message.

Fan culture is the heart and soul of football; anything that encourages people to get behind their team in an enthusiastic, positive and respectful way is worth promoting.

Pullovers are one the great spectacles of football matches but Hatamoto, the security company engaged by the FFA to attend matches, monitor crowds and make sure nothing goes awry that is going to end up on the TV news and besmirch football's image, has deemed that they will forthwith be banned for "high risk" matches, the very first being the rematch of grand finalists Sydney and Melbourne in Round 1.

What a load of heavy-handed twaddle.

A hardcore Sydney FC fan, Grant Rieper, emailed me during the week to express his understandable frustration.

"This means that the efforts that my friends and I are putting in, pulling all-nighters in a dance studio in Chippendale and weekend work in office space in Homebush, is all for nothing," he complained. "Not to mention the cost of buying so much material (which comes from our own pockets and from revenue created by our own merchandising) or the added spice it gives to these games.

"I'm pretty sure the FFA, on some basic level, understand what the efforts of organised support does for our game because it's the sole focus of their ad campaign."

You would hope so, Grant, but the problem is the FFA, for all its pretence in being a football organisation, isn't run by football people.

It's a collection of highly remunerated suits that treat football just like any other "product". And it's a product they want to sanitise and make "family friendly", especially so because there's a World Cup bid in train and the FFA doesn't want to take the risk of something violent or controversial happening at A-League games.

Which may be all well and fine, but to promote the game with pullovers on one hand and then ban them on the other is really the height of not just hypocrisy but stupidity.

Fans like Grant who devote their personal time and money into supporting football have every reason to walk away from stadium turnstiles and stay at home. The FFA doesn't deserve their custom.

Without fans, the game is nothing. Unless it overturns Hatamoto's decision, FFA will soon be selling a "product" no one wants to buy.

The bunting hasn't even come down from the quadrennial football lollapalooza called the World Cup and already North Asia's best striker has been snapped up by a European club, DPR Korea and Kawasaki Frontale's Jong Tae-se being signed by German second-division side VfL Bochum on a deal that runs till 2012 with an option for another season.

"I've wanted with all my heart to go to Europe, " he said on Bochum's website.

VfL have tried very hard to get me and this has impressed me very much. I look forward to my time in Bochum and hope I can help them return to the Bundesliga."

A sentiment that the Asian football fan undoubtedly shares.

I first saw Jong playing for Kawasaki in the Asian Champions League against Melbourne Victory and he got involved in a sideline scrap with the Australians' hardnut defender Adrian Leijer, who had just returned down under after failing to make the grade at Fulham in the English Premier League.

It was the usual sort of tangle between central defender and striker and Leijer gave Jong a good push and shove when they got up. In the past, Asian strikers would normally shirk from taking on a 24-year-old 6-foot-tall walking fridge from Dubbo but Jong gave as good as he got and fronted up to Leijer, who appeared to be shocked by the North Korean's nerve.

It was beautiful to watch and emblematic of how Asian football is changing. Asians aren't afraid of dishing it out anymore. They're not about to cower or run away from a challenge. The divide between European and Asian in terms of ability is not real but all in the mind. Jong represents all that the modern Asian footballer is and strives to be.

It's unfortunate he didn't have a better World Cup but he stood out for the Chollima in the clash against Brazil in Johannesburg, setting up Ji Yun-nam's (and DP Korea's only goal of the tournament) and wore his heart on his sleeve during the singing of the national anthem before games, famously crying before the match against Brazil. He has heart and courage and backs up those attributes with physical presence and, that most precious of the striker's arts, cunning.

So he's not just a good footballer for Asia but a good footballer for the world, who just happens to look Asian but plays with the ferocity, commitment and smarts of any top European.

Kudos to VfL Bochum for allowing him to realise his potential in one of the best leagues in the world (even the German second-division is superior to some top leagues in Europe and Asia) and congratulations to Jong for being just the third North Korean player of the current national team to make his living as a professional in Europe.

May more follow in his considerably large footsteps.

If you've been following the Australian media over the past week, you can't have missed the sensational investigation by two journalists from the Fairfax media group, Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie, which has blown the lid on Football Federation Australia's bidding tactics for winning the right to host the 2022 World Cup.

If you have missed it, check it out - it's a story that has many dramatic twists and turns, claims and counterclaims.

International consultants standing to make almost $12 million in fees. Aid money being funnelled strategically to countries that can make or break the bid. Allegations that key members of FIFA's executive committee were recommended to be appointed honorary consuls for Australia in their home nations. The list goes on.

If they were playing with their own money, the FFA would be entitled to do what they like. But the issue is they're not - they're diddling with $45.6 million of Australian taxpayers' money - so different rules of accountability and disclosure apply.

The worst of Fairfax's revelations, in my view, is that FIFA executive committee members and their partners were given pearl pendants and cufflinks at a dinner hosted by FFA chairman Frank Lowy at his grand pile in Sydney's eastern suburbs and that the FFA paid for a Trinidad & Tobago under-20 men's team to travel to Cyprus for a training camp.

FFA chief executive Ben Buckley defends the gifts by saying it is "a widely accepted, common practice among governments, many business and sporting organisations to provide symbolic gifts to visiting international delegations" and, that in regard to the Cyprus junket, Australia's football body "has a responsibility to promote football and social development amongst less developed nations".

I will say two things on these matters.

One, in regard to the pearls, the FFA is not doing anything that I'm sure a lot of other bidding nations have done or will try to do. But it was naïve to think something like this would never come out in the wash and at the very least the FFA should have known the gifts of pearls would be a public relations disaster if it ever got out.

It duly did - and the FFA's defence has been far from convincing and, in any case, it certainly doesn't make such largesse right in the first place. Especially when there are people waiting months, even years, for surgery in cash-starved Australian public hospitals.

Two, in regard to the trip by the T&T team to Cyprus, "promoting football and social development amongst less developed nations" might be a noble and worthy exercise when its done in Australia's immediate neighbourhood - the Pacific and Asia - but paying for a CONCACAF nation to go to a camp in Europe, with no discernable benefit to Australia other than making FIFA executive committee member Jack Warner happy, is something else altogether. When was the last time France paid for a Papua New Guinean junior side to play in Europe?

Australia's Olympic Committee boss, John Coates, who won Sydney 2000 for Australia, has come out swinging in support of the FFA, declaring "this is not a game of marbles" and "the FFA has to stick to its guns if it wants to win".

Of course, he's right. Bidding for a World Cup is not a mug's game and there are all sorts of backs to be scratched if Australia hopes to stand a chance of winning the right to host the 2022 Cup.

But when when the process is so sleazy, who in their right mind would want to be a part of it when you feel so dirty afterwards?

Bravo, Guus Hiddink, for standing up for the football fans of the world and demanding FIFA president Sepp Blatter fall on his sword immediately unless he approves the introduction of video technology.

"Sepp Blatter should announce tomorrow that video replay will be implemented or he needs to resign," the Dutch master said in the wake of England's disallowed but legitimate goal in the Round of 16 clash against Germany.

Too right. Enough is enough and World Cups can no longer go on being ruined by human error when there perfectly sound and applicable technologies that can make the game better and fairer. Nor can fans continue to be treated like they don't matter, with FIFA's peabodies continually stalling on supporting technologies that work well in other sports but are deemed in their eyes to run counter to the purity of football.

South Africa 2010 will go down in football history as a failure - from the unfilled stands to the racket of the vuvuzelas to the hopeless Jabulani ball to the atrocious and inconsistent refereeing decisions to the outbreak (largely unpunished) of handballs and hammy acting. But it has a chance to be redeemed if FIFA uses what happened in Bloemfontein as a catalyst for real change.

At the next annual general meeting of the International Football Associations Board, the body that ratifies changes to the Laws of the Game, it simply must reverse its previous stated opposition to technology and side with the English and Scottish FAs, which pushed for the introduction of goal-line technology at IFAB's last meeting in March but were defeated when the motion was put to a vote, FIFA using its four votes to crush it.

Blatter should not underestimate the rage of fans, or the mood of referees, players, coaches and administrators who are sick of seeing fairness being sacrificed in the name of tradition.

Referees, especially, are being betrayed by FIFA. Their job is hard enough already monitoring simulation, errant elbows, shirt pulling and handballs perpetrated by cynically motivated players without also having to adjudicate on goal-line decisions that carry so much importance yet have to be processed in the blink of eye.

It's little wonder so many men in black are walking away from the game altogether. They cop all the stick, but they are not the problem - it is FIFA itself and, as the old saying goes, the fish rots from the head down.

Blatter wants another term as FIFA president at his fiefdom in Zurich and all the signs are that he will get his wish. But if the votes for that election were procured from the game's real constituents - the fans - he would be run out of town.

Never has an administrator in sport been so powerful yet so unrepresentative of the wishes of the people he rules.

Such a situation cannot be allowed to continue and hopefully Hiddink's denunciation of Blatter will be the first of many from people with real influence in the game who want to see change and are sick of the status quo.

Revolutions have a habit of starting from the smallest acts of bravery. If he wants to keep his job, it's time Blatter brushed up on his history and changed his tune.

North Korea's 7-0 horror show against Portugal was both one of the most thrilling but profoundly depressing experiences at this or any World Cup.

Thrilling for the rapier-like creativeness and clinical finishing of the Portuguese goals but depressing for the Chollima's utter capitulation after they went 2-0 down. They simply decided it was over and switched off; just like the Pakistan cricket team does when it quickly loses a few wickets up the order.

Not a characteristic unique to Asian sport - African football teams have a similar ability to mentally shirk from a challenge when it seems insurmountable - but the AFC must be deeply embarrassed right now that a team that held Brazil to a respectable scoreline in its opening match could return one of the worst results in World Cup history: only shaded by Saudi Arabia's 8-0 loss to Germany at Korea-Japan 2002, Bolivia's 8-0 loss to Uruguay at Brazil 50, Cuba's 8-0 loss to Sweden at France 38, Zaire's 9-0 loss to Yugoslavia at Germany 74, South Korea's 9-0 loss to Hungary at Switzerland 54 and the only double-digit score in 80 years of world championship football, a 10-1 hammering of El Salvador by the same side at Spain 82.

Quite apart from a few red faces at the AFC, though, of more concern is the fate of the team when they fly back to Pyongyang; this was not how the country's iron-fisted despot Kim Jong-il wanted things to turn out.

North Korea's return to World Cup football was supposed to be a priceless propaganda opportunity for the world's one remaining Stalinist state. Instead it will become a source of national shame and ignominy.

The World Cup team of 1966 were feted as heroes. How the team of 2010 will be received is anyone's guess but no doubt there will be some worried footballers right now in the DPR Korea camp; being on the wrong end of another massacre in their third and final match against Ivory Coast will be ringing alarm bells at Amnesty International.

The really unfortunate aspect to the whole saga of the North Korean team, however, is that for those 120 minutes (the 90 against Brazil, that half hour against Portugal) they played some great defensive, counter-attacking football. They were well organised, mentally and physically on the ball and did their country and the AFC proud.

For their welfare, footballing and otherwise, let's hope for their last hurrah against the West Africans that they can muster the same focus, spirit and commitment that got them to South Africa in the first place. A draw against Les Éléphants would be as good as a win and, after a 7-0 loss like the one in Cape Town, tantamount to winning the World Cup itself.

They might have been humiliated by Portugal but they still have a chance to go home with their heads held high.

Pim Verbeek is not a "PIMBECILE", as one Australian newspaper disgracefully declared in the wake of the Socceroos' 4-0 humiliation at the hands of Germany in Durban this week at the World Cup.

Pim is a gentleman. Cultured, considerate, warm and generous. As admirable a human being as you will ever come across. But he made the biggest mistake of his life on the biggest night of life.

The team deserves our sympathy, as do the fans, as does Pim himself, for his grievous tactical error. But at the end of the day, it was just a football game. All people make mistakes. As midfielder Vince Grella quipped: "F***, no one died."

There are two more matches in Australia's qualification campaign, starting with Ghana this weekend, followed by Serbia on June 24. Australia's World Cup is not over. Yet. It will be the greatest test of Pim's career to lift his players in the next few days and instill in them the belief they can overcome a slick Black Stars unit that prevailed 1-0 over Serbia.

Fortunately, mental strength is something Australian footballers have in excelsis, if just to make up for their sadly lacking technical acumen. I believe the Socceroos have the ability to defeat Ghana - that they have already done, consistently, in six meetings since 1995, winning four, drawing one and losing one - but they are going to have to do it this time on the biggest stage of all, in Africa, out of form and severely undermanned.

It is not overstating things to say it is shaping up as arguably the toughest match in Australia's football history, which goes all the way back to 1879, in Hobart, Tasmania, when the first competitive match of association football was played Down Under.

If there is one positive to emerge from the blitzkrieg the Nationalmannschaft meted out to the Aussies it was the performance of two younger players called into action in the second half when Tim Cahill was sent off: the much maligned Brett Holman and substitute striker Nikita Rukavytsya.

The Germans have made a point of championing youth as have the Ghanaians. It is time Verbeek followed suit. He has nothing to lose and everything to gain by injecting his squad's raw but talented rookies into Australia's date with destiny in Rustenburg. Craig Moore has to be dropped. He is palpably past it and a liability.

Japan-based Mark Milligan or new Melbourne Heart recruit Michael Beauchamp should be brought into central defence alongside Lucas Neill, who also had a poor game against the Germans but is the captain and must be given one more game to show his mettle.

The defensive 4-2-3-1 system that Verbeek used to get to the World Cup but bafflingly abandoned in Durban until it was all too late should be reinstated at the outset (after all, it's what he knows best) but used more aggressively, with the younger and sharper Carl Valeri to replace Vince Grella as a holding midfielder, Jason Culina to be recalled from the left flank to partner him, pacy midfielder Dario Vidosic to be thrown out on the left, the renewed Brett Holman to tuck in behind the striker with the reliable Brett Emerton out on the right.

A pick of Harry Kewell (is he fit?) or Nikita Rukavytsya to start as lone striker. They offer much more than the one-dimensional heading machine Josh Kennedy, who cannot hold the ball up and whose work rate is poor.

What else is there to do but throw everything and the kitchen sink at the Black Stars?

Australia's World Cup dream might be in great peril but there is still time to rescue it with some calm thinking and considered risk taking. In my view the team's young stars are up to the task of leading the salvage mission.

You could be excused for missing it, with the World Cup just days away, but last week Luiz Felipe Scolari officially parted ways with FC Bunyodkor, bringing to an end one of the most disastrous marriages in world football.

Disastrous because Scolari proved just throwing money at a coach isn't a guarantee of success. He promised Bunyodkor an Asian Champions League title and in two attempts couldn't get further than the quarter-finals, the Uzbeki champions crashing to Pohang Steelers at that stage in 2009 and Al-Hilal in the round of 16 in this year's competition.

But for all his money - Scolari was the highest paid coach in the world at Bunyodkor, on €16.6m a season - he still can't scrounge together any humility. Rather than admitting he failed, Scolari offered an extraordinary excuse: "My main reason for leaving Uzbekistan is because I want to help with my son's studies. He has just graduated from Tashkent International School and is about to study at university. I need to support and help him now.

"I will go back to Portugal on June 3 to resolve my son's studying issues. It will take approximately 15 to 30 days. My son will not wish to stay in Portugal, so I can't say anything about my next job at the moment. Sure, I will consider all offers, but now I can't say anything exactly."

Right. So we are led to believe Scolari's son's "studying issues" are so pressing, with no more than a month to sort out, that his father has no option but to quit the highest remunerated coaching position on the planet? Can't pick up the telephone! Can't use Skype!

Is it just a coincidence that Jose Mourinho is moving out of his digs in Milan at the same time. Of course it is! And there goes a pig by my window.

Scolari came to Central Asia offering altruistic platitudes: "I like the way the club is taking on a new football reality in Uzbekistan... I'm a professional and I work wherever they give me the chance to improve and where I can offer them some of my knowledge - such as Bunyodkor."

The only beneficial knowledge Bunyodkor's owners would have got from Scolari is never to waste such a gross amount of money on a single man again. Which is why they've plumped for Scolari's assistant, an Uzbeki, Mirdjalal Kasimov, who coached the team in 2007 and Uzbekistan from 2008 to April this year, to take over. They had more success under him, making the ACL semis in 2008 under old name PFC Kuruvchi, at a fraction of Scolari's salary.

The ACL is a grand competition but, as Aurelio Vidmar proved in 2008 by getting Adelaide United to the final on the smell of an oily rag, you don't have to spend a lot of money to win it or come close. Dedication, team spirit and hard work are things money can't buy - but they're the things that make a genuine difference when it comes to winning football matches.

Bunyodkor's Scolari mistake might have cost €35 million but at least it will never be repeated.

Korea Republic, Asia's form team despite the weekend's poor result against Bernd Stange's Belarus (don't let that fool you), has just announced its final 23-man squad for the World Cup in South Africa and there are few surprises, Park Ji-Sung and Lee Chung-Yong leading a healthy European-based contingent of seven players.

Two others play in Japan, and one each in Saudi Arabia and China. That's nearly half the team earning their keep overseas.

What's perhaps most surprising, though, is that given the continental form of Korean teams in the Asian Champions League, more domestic-based players weren't retained.

For the first time in history, four Korean teams (Pohang, Jeonbuk, Seongnam and Suwon) have made the ACL quarter-finals.
But all the same, coach Huh Jung-moo has rewarded them for that historic achievement, with places going to Kim Hyung-il and Kim Jae-sung (Pohang), Lee Woon-Jae and Yeom Ki-hun (Suwon), Kim Jae-sung and Jung Sung-ryong (Seongnam), and Lee Dong-gook (Jeonbuk).

Japan-based striker Lee Keun-ho, Pohang defender Shin Hyung-min and midfielder Koo Ja-cheol were the three to be omitted from the expanded provisional squad, with Pohang's injured veteran striker Lee keeping his place and clearly benefiting from the same largesse from Huh that Australia coach and Huh's predecessor Pim Verbeek has bestowed on the crocked Harry Kewell.

But where Kewell is expected to play some part in Australia's opener against Germany in Durban on June 13, Lee will likely sit out the Taeguk Warriors' first match, against Greece in Port Elizabeth on June 12.

The Koreans couldn't manage any scoring opportunity of note against Belarus in Kufstein, which is perhaps why Lee has made the cut.

But the Koreans up to this point have been a free-scoring side in 2010, bar the 3-0 hammering by China in the EAFF championships. They had two good wins over Ecuador and Japan in May and defeated Ivory Coast in England in March. All three games finished 2-0.

Perhaps it was pre-purge nerves that got better of them - their passing, normally a strong suit, was woeful in Austria- but I'm expecting a massive improvement from the east Asians against Spain later this week in Innsbruck.

The Warriors have been stung badly but the pain came at the right time and there is no doubting their mental resolve. As Huh, the pioneer of "taekwondo football", has said: "In every game, my players are full of passion and have a fighter's spirit. Our determination to win, our desire for success and coherence as a team is second to none in the world. You can easily break a single branch, but when it's a bundle of ten, it's a different story."

Perhaps, but they will have to write their 2010 World Cup story without Kyoto Sanga's highly rated centre-back Kwak Tae-hwi. He injured his knee in the first half against Belarus and has been ruled out of the tournament, his place going to Kang Ming-soo, also of Suwon.

So that's eight players from the quartet of ACL quarter-finalists. If match fitness and squad familiarity counts for anything, and Korean sides have been outstanding in the ACL, then watch out for Korea Republic to bounce back with some alacrity against Spain.

La Roja should not underestimate them - and nor should the world in South Africa.

The Socceroos were never meant to be a brand but that's what Football Federation Australia has turned them into since 2006.

And in just four years the cult darlings of Australia's massive sporting fan base have become everything their true hardcore fans never wanted: smug, self-possessed, out for the corporate dollar, entitled.

Everything that is wrong with the Socceroos, 2010 version, was on display this week against New Zealand in Melbourne.
There was the half-empty stadium - a massive jolt for anyone who had seen the packed house for Greece at the same venue in 2005.

Then the players walked out on to the pitch looking as though they had already won the game.

Then they thought simply moving the ball around while whistling Jack Johnson tunes would keep their inferior opponents in their thrall and move the crowd to raptures.

Then, worst of all, they assumed the goals would come without playing with shape, thrust or incisiveness. But New Zealand, a nation already punching above its weight by getting to the World Cup, hadn't subscribed to the Socceroos' favouritism.

Whatever they can do we can do to was their mantra.

And they did. Not only did they do it but they also did it better. Save for the woodwork and some wayward finishing, the Socceroos could have been three goals down rather than one at half-time.

They should have had two players, Vince Grella and Tim Cahill, sent off for crude tackles on Leo Bertos, Grella's especially horrific, a two-footed flying lunge, but somehow managed to keep all 11 players on the park going into the break.

Having seen one of his better players almost ripped in half by these Australian thugs, All Whites boss Ricki Herbert thought it prudent to take Bertos off to hospital and bench a few more of his first XI.

It was from that point that Australia gained its ascendancy and took it, proving physical football can pay off after all so long as the other guys don't want to stay and fight.

The Kiwis had better things to do - like protecting the wellbeing of their players - and dropped off, letting Australia back into the game, conceding an unfortunate goal and looking like they would hold out for a draw until Brett Holman, known pejoratively in some circles as "Brett LOLman" for his habit of screwing up even the most basic pass, managed to score a magnificent poacher's goal with the last kick of the match.

It was a cruel ending for what had been a brave display by the Kiwis but crueller in the fact it had let Verbeek and his squad off the hook - again - for a listless and discouraging performance that utterly betrays the spirit and energy for which the Socceroos earned such raves from the world in 2006.

They might be earning more money than ever before, but until these Socceroos wake up to their potential and start examining what it was that made them such a great time in 2006 and makes them such a crummy one in 2010, they're not delivering bang for your bucks or mine.

There's been a bit of a kerfuffle in the Australian football press, stoked by me and others, about how the two best Australian defenders in Asia, Seongnam's Sasa Ognenovski and Shimizu's Eddy Bosnar, can be omitted from Australia's World Cup squad in favour one bloke who couldn't get a game in the K-League, Jade North, and another playing second tier football in Japan, Mark Milligan.

I think it's a reasonable debate to have  but curiously some have found my stance antagonistic to the point of being unpatriotic. Support your team, you whinger. Which is balls. Criticising the squad is a gesture of my passion for it and my passion for the game. When you suspend criticism and stop asking questions, that's when the game has a problem. Football without debate is nothing.

Bosnar, Ognenovski and others have all sorts of reasons to be disappointed at their omissions, and Beijing Guoan striker Joel Griffiths has not been shy coming forward with his views, telling a newspaper in Sydney last weekend: "There was no phone call, not even a text. Not once did [Verbeek] come and watch a game... it really upset me when he said we have better strikers than Joel Griffiths, how the hell would he know? He's never seen me for two years.

"He knows me as a player, [but] he has no idea what I'm capable of. I will never be a yes man."

Bosnar took a different tack, calling for the Australian public to get behind Verbeek: "It's disappointing for every player to miss out but I recognise that I don't really have a right to be disappointed - I haven't been involved in the squad before and I can understand Pim's reasons for sticking with the players he's used previously."

Yet he unloaded both barrels at Verbeek's assistant, Graham Arnold.

"He's never wanted me in the squad. When I was playing Holland my old coach, Ruud Brood, asked why I wasn't in the national team and I said to call Arnold who he knew personally. The exact words that came back from Arnold were: 'While I'm involved in the national team that guy will never play for Australia.'"

Ognenovski, so far, has been silent on his freezing-out yet of those omitted he probably had the best case for selection. But he was never in the frame. Ognenovski says he "seriously has no idea why" he's been perpetually overlooked, despite being a colossus for his Korean team in the K-League and Asian Champions League, but I have a pretty good idea why: communication.

It dates back to when Ognenovski was first being talked about as a Socceroo for the Asian Cup qualifiers against Indonesia in 2009 and how Verbeek communicated his decision to the player that he wasn't in his plans. Verbeek was not happy with how Ognenovski chose to react and since then it appears The Ogre has paid a heavy price for this unfortunate personality clash. If they had patched things up, I have no doubt Ognenovski would be going to South Africa.

The unflattering fact of the matter, though, is that Verbeek should have put Australian football's sake before his own stubborn pride and brokered a rapprochement.

He may well be a great manager of football players, but managing his own mistakes and putting them right is not his strong suit.   

Something different this week, a subject that outside football every man regards as his most important leisure pursuit: sex. Some of us can get it easily, others can't, some of us want stuff we can't get at home, so where there is a demand there is a supply.

The sex scandal engulfing Bayern Munich and France star Frank Ribery, one of the world's elite players, is a tragedy of mammoth proportions, spectacular for its unfairness and hypocrisy. The man is said to be shattered, and former France manager Aime Jacquet has called the media's reporting of the affair a "manhunt". And he's right.

No one is disputing the fact that Ribery slept with a 17-year-old French-Moroccan prostitute called Zahia Dehar from the Café Zaman brothel in Paris. No one is disputing that Ribery was wrong for cheating on his wife and letting down his children. But to suggest he could possibly be going to jail for three years for that mistake, slugged with a massive fine and live the rest of his life pilloried and shamed for having committed a supposed "sex crime" is preposterous.

The legal age of consent in France is 15, and there are many, many people losing their virginity even earlier, yet while it is okay for a 82-year-old man to sleep with a 15-year-old so long as money is not exchanged it is illegal for a 17-year-old to sleep with a 27-year-old if cash is involved.

Zahan, if you've seen her pictures, is a mature-looking, very attractive young woman, clearly versed in the ways of the world. She told police: "I slept with the men [Ribery, his France teammates Karim Benzema and Sidney Govou], but I wasn't truthful about my age. I loved them all. They treated me with utter respect and should be left alone. They spoiled me, and looked after me. They were my men."

AKA she's fine with it. She said she lied about her age.

And that's where it should end, along with these astoundingly hypocritical and inane nanny-state laws that ensnare unsuspecting men and make juveniles of women who are old enough to make the decision to have sex when they're 15 but not old enough to do it for money until they're 18. What a crock.

France had enough problems at this World Cup with its hopeless coach without having to deal with this unnecessary distraction. Ribery, Govou and Benzema should be able to go to South Africa clear in their minds and free to concentrate on their football.

People have sex. Some people pay for it. Some people take money for it. So long as the people involved consent, are mature enough to be having relations and aren't hurt, what's the problem?

Set Ribery free.

I would like to think it was something I wrote. A few weeks back I penned an editorial for an Australian website, urging A-League clubs in the wake of Kansas City Wizards signing Sunil Chhetri, to sign as many Indian players as they could. But not even my ego can take credit for that. The maths of signing Indian footballers are simply a no-brainer and so Melbourne Heart, the newest A-League club, has announced it is giving a trial to Gouramangi Singh, defender for Churchill Brothers and the Bhangra Boys.

Gouramangi has a few things going for him. Not least his height - he is over six foot in the imperial measurements - and will be going to the Asian Cup next January with India where he will be squaring off against Australia to add to his already considerable international experience.

It's worth noting that triallists usually don't have press releases put out for them by the club.

Melbourne Heart - which has already made a big splash in Australia by signing Socceroos John Aloisi, Dean Heffernan and Simon Colosimo - clearly sees Gouramangi as a vehicle for pushing the Heart brand into Asia, just like Kansas has done with Chhetri. It's cynical, perhaps, but smart business and they get themselves a capable young player in the bargain who would attract Melbourne's large Indian student population to matches.

And though the club has been careful to point out it's just a trial, mentioning in its press release that "we will have a close look at his ability, and determine whether he is both capable of making the transition to the [Australian league] and playing the football we want to play", Gouramangi would have to break his leg not to be picked up by the ambitious Melbourne franchise.

Gouramangi's international teammate Chhetri has yet to make his full Major League Soccer debut but has scored multiple times for the club in friendlies and played 45 minutes against Colorado Rapids in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. Coach Peter Vermes called his performance: "Okay... but he wasn't getting close enough to goal. We've got to figure out different ways to get him closer to goal."

Chhetri himself said: "I thought I had some good touches, but it's going to take some time, and I'm going to go back to the training field and train hard."

Which suggests the A-League isn't going to be a cakewalk for Gouramangi. The MLS and A-League are roughly the same standard and both are more fast-paced and physically demanding than the I-League.

But in time both will get their big chance and Indian football can take a small step forward. There are a lot of people banking on their success.

Mohamed bin Hammam really had no choice. In 12 months in which a raft of A-League clubs went into administration or were threatening to pull out of the Australian competition altogether, the only bright news from the Antipodes was the explosive growth of Wellington Phoenix on and off the pitch.

Bumper crowds. A semi-final berth. Why wouldn't he want to keep the club a going concern if his remit was to advance the cause of football in Australia, one of the Asian Football Confederation's most powerful members? The problem was the AFC chief had made it plain at the AFC Congress in November that he wanted Wellington out of Asia, likely because he had his nose out of joint at Bahrain being thwarted by New Zealand for passage to the World Cup and his important West Asian constituency wasn't happy.

Finally, however, he's seen the light, granting an extension to the Kiwi club to play in the A-League till 2017. There were real fears it wouldn't survive past 2012. The decision will be rubber-stamped at the FIFA Congress in South Africa in June.
It's a wonderful development and Hammam should be applauded for his volte face. I would venture, though, that he now turn his attention to the vexed question of New Zealand joining Asia and similarly extend the same charity.

A sportswriting colleague of mine, John Duerden, has argued otherwise in a piece for the web this week, asserting that the benefits of the Kiwis joining the AFC are "one-sided". "[Asia] is already large enough," he says. "Australia is a lengthy flight from almost anywhere. Adding New Zealand to the mix just stretches the fabric all the more.

Adding an extra country may not seem like a big deal but once New Zealand comes, then Oceania would come too. It would have to as it could not survive otherwise. An influx of new and weak members is the last thing Asia needs at the moment."

I respectfully disagree, John.

What Asia needs to do, once and for all, is be split into two zones: West and East, with Oceania being absorbed into the eastern federation.

The AFC is "already large enough", which is why it needs to be dissected. Though smaller than the Confederation of African Football in terms of members (the CAF has 55, the AFC 46), its geographical spread is unwieldy and makes travel difficult for away teams, as we have seen in World Cup qualifying and the Asian Champions League.

An East/West split would be simple to do and give Asia as a whole an additional precious half place in World Cup spots, bringing it up from 4.5 to 5.

The ASEAN Football Federation (12 spots) and the East Asian Football Federation (10) would go into the East, joined by Oceania (11). The top five teams according to FIFA rankings would be Australia (19), Japan (45), Korea Republic (49), New Zealand (79) and China (84).

The West would be taken up by the extant West Asian Football Federation (13) and the Central & South Asian Football Federation (12). The top teams would be Saudi Arabia (62), Iran (63), Bahrain (67), Iraq (81) and Kuwait (94).

No teams in the top 50. A West federation of 25 teams against the East's 33. Why would anyone in the West have cause to complain then?

The federation that would be disadvantaged is in fact the East, because if five World Cup spots were available between the two confederations, the third place-getter in each would have to go head to head, meaning Korea Republic, for example in third spot, would playoff against Bahrain rather than have a free pass to the World Cup finals, as has been the case in the past.

And New Zealand is getting anything but a leg-up, something it was accused of by only having to beat Bahrain in a playoff in the 2009 World Cup qualifiers after getting through OFC qualifying. It would have to overcome the might of Japan, Korea Republic, Korea DPR, Australia and China to get anywhere near third spot. A highly unlikely scenario

For that reason Hammam should see the political beauty of the arrangement. Guaranteed passage for two West Asian teams every World Cup, something it could not achieve with even one team for South Africa 2010.

But the man has created his own kingdom and has aspirations beyond the AFC, namely the presidency of FIFA. Dismantling piece by piece the federation he has spent so long building would be counterintuitive and risky for his candidacy. As the Phoenix has proved, however, new life can spring out of the ashes of destruction.

It's up to Hammam, then, to show us all once again how brave he can be.

While the big news in Australian football circles in the past few days was that Melbourne Victory had rejected an offer from Borussia Dortmund for their young goalkeeper Mitch Langerak, the most interesting was that the same club had signed a contract extension with Surat Sukha, the Thai international who arrived from Chonburi FC mid last year.

Writing at the time, I said I hoped Surat would help overturn "decades of deeply ingrained myopia, small-mindedness, xenophobia and ignorance in Australian football by coming to Melbourne" and that Australian clubs "are starting to appreciate that smaller, more technical, more nimble Asian players have what it takes to compete against the height and brawn of homemade footballers".

Surat didn't change Australia or win over Victory fans completely - there were the usual moronic grumblings about his size - but he did prove that work rate, heart and skill get noticed and appreciated.

Though he plays defensive midfield for the Elephants and took time to get used to the pace of the Australian game, Surat eventually excelled as a defensive utility/wingback for the Australian superclub, made 18 appearances (and could have had more but for a hamstring injury), started in the grand final and is an integral part of Ernie Merrick's improving side as it attempts to do the impossible and qualify for the second round of the Asian Champions League this week through Group E by defeating Beijing Guoan at home Wednesday, beat group leaders Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma away and hope their woeful goal difference doesn't count against them in the final analysis.

It was a season of adjustment - language, country, league - complicated by his required attendance in an Asian Cup campaign that went right down to the wire in Tehran, and overall Surat came through with his reputation enhanced.

"He's fitted in so well," says club operations manager Gary Cole.

"He's always laughing and smiling and he and his family thoroughly enjoy living in Melbourne."

Not something that can always be said about foreign players - some with far bigger pay packets and attendant perks - who come to Australia. So Surat has done very well.

But his biggest impact will now be inspiring other South-East Asian players who might have been scared off by the prospect of coming Down Under - the physical toughness of the game, the expectations of the fans to perform instantly - to throw caution to the wind and take a chance with their careers.

In Thailand alone there are a number of very good players at Thai Premier League clubs Chonburi and Muangthong United that could make the grade in the A-League.

Unfortunately, though, Melbourne are one of the few clubs in Australia that has a progressive recruitment policy. Most are stuck in the Dark Ages, scraping for bargains in Scotland, England, Holland, Italy and Greece.

That will eventually be consigned to history, but in the meantime Sukha's private revolution, small but significant, is not going unnoticed or unappreciated.

Let's get this straight. Some Iranian girls were due to come to Singapore in August to play football in the inaugural Youth Olympic Games. Being Iranian and therefore largely Shi'a, they play their football in hijab, the traditional headwear seen on observant women anywhere in the Middle East and South-East Asia.

No problem as I see it. Might get a little sweaty under there but it's their prerogative.

What's the big deal?

But according to Jerome Valcke, FIFA's secretary general, "the FIFA Executive Committee had no choice, but to take the decision that [the Islamic Republic of Iran] will not be able to participate" because the hijab contravenes the Laws of the Game, specifically number four, which states "basic compulsory equipment must not have any political, religious or personal statements".

Basic equipment, for the record, comprises a jersey or shirt with sleeves, shorts, stockings, shinguards and footwear. No mention of hijab.

All well and good. But there's also no mention of an Alice band.

There's no mention of Edgar David's sunglasses. There's no mention of Taribo West's beads. Are sweatbands "basic compulsory equipment"? No.

So why do so many players wear them?

And what of Nike's "Stand Up, Speak Up" anti-racism wristband campaign supported by FIFA? Didn't that constitute a political or personal statement?

Yes, but Nike got special permission. Something not forthcoming to the Iranian girls, who are only doing what their society and religion demands of them. As Bahram Afsharzadeh, the Iranian Olympic committee secretary general says, "Hijab is related to the Islamic culture and Muslim women can't take part in social activities without it."

The key words are "can't take part". In other words it's a code. A rule. Law.

We might find such rules distasteful and the position of women in Iranian society an outrage, but we should also be grateful we are even seeing a group of Iranian females kick a ball at all. That is a triumph of its own that should be celebrated and telling them they have to stay at home is in actual fact perpetuating their repression.

FIFA needs to rethink this issue and put aside semantics for the sake of common sense and the greater good, which when all is said and done is having men, women and children in every part of the world playing football.

By banning the Iranian women's football team, they are indulging in the very prejudice they claim to abhor.

On March 20 Shunsuke Nakamura underlined why he and fellow European returnees Junichi Inamoto and Shinji Ono are going to be such massive drawcards in an already gripping J-League season by scoring one of the finest goals you will ever see.

Dig it out on YouTube because it's a sight for sore eyes: a scorching 30-yard strike from the Yokohama F Marinos playmaker with his left foot right into the top left corner of Eiji Kawashima's net after just eight minutes of the match against Kawasaki Frontale, the side that would see to completely obliterating Melbourne Victory in the Asian Champions League a few days later.

The match at Nissan Stadium, in front of 35,000 people, finished 4-0 and sent Kazushi Kimura's side straight to the top of the standings after three rounds.

After a period of purgatory in Spain with Espanyol, this was Nakamura back to his Celtic best. Clubs might change and fortunes might wane but class never dies.

That he could produce such a performance, too, when under so much pressure to perform and do so instantly when by his own reckoning he was only at "65 per cent" is a mark of just how good he really is and what an ornament he is to the game in Asia.

"I'd been working on shooting from a distance in training. With these new balls that don't spin, it can be pretty effective," he said after the game.

"I'm probably at about 65 per cent now. I'm still in the process of figuring out how I can get the most out of everyone else and getting myself in shape at the same time."

It's incredible to contemplate just how good he will be when he's back to peak condition and sounds a warning to Japan's rivals at South Africa 2010 not to discount the Samurai Blue, even if much of the squad is now earning their keep in the domestic league - which wasn't the case at Germany 2006.

Japan's premier football competition doesn't get the attention it deserves in its own part of the world, which is a shame because while most Singaporeans, Malays and Indians are lapping up the Premier League and La Liga they are really missing out on some lovely football played in Asia by Asians.

The Japanese are the Brazilians of Asia and in combination football, playing out from the defence through the midfield to the strikers with neat passing and smart movement, they are second to none.

What they lack in comparison to Europe is deadliness in front of goal - hence the mass importation of South American strikers in the J-League - and this will always be the Japanese national team's main problem.

While domestic teams can buy South Americans, getting them in national colours is a different issue and trickier process altogether. 

But times are changing.

The Japanese have some exciting young attacking players in foreign-based stars Keisuke Honda (CSKA Moscow) and Takayuki Morimoto (Catania), the latter being likened to three-time FIFA World Player of the Year Ronaldo by AC Milan's Brazilian star Pato and already linked with a move to Manchester United and Arsenal.

The J-League, too, has some of its own stardust in Shimizu S-Pulse's Shinji Okazaki and FC Tokyo's Sota Hirayama.

Throw them into the mix with old stagers such as Nakamura, Yatsuhito Endo and Kengo Nakamura and you have a side that is going to be no walkover and should not be underestimated, even if recent results have been short of expectations.

National coach Takeshi Okada has marked a semi-final result as a realistic target for Japan and a few months ago he would have been laughed out of the room by any football pundit.

But from the quality of the football we're seeing in the J-League and the notices Japan's foreign legion is getting in Europe, his confidence might not be as misplaced as it first appears.

As Nakamura proved against Kawasaki, beautiful goals never get lost in translation.

So Pim Verbeek has officially decided to leave Australia and the Socceroos coaching gig after the conclusion of South Africa 2010 for a "new challenge". What that might be is still unknown, but I can tell you for the record it won't be club coaching in Germany. Or at least that's what Pim told me before he left Australia earlier this month to fly to Europe and check on his European-based contingent before their farewell match against New Zealand in Melbourne on May 24.

He will end up at a club, though, that much is certain. From the friendship I managed to develop with Pim between 2007 and the present day what struck me several times about the affable Dutchman was how much he missed the day-to-day grind of high-level coaching in Europe, even Asia.

Australia, he told me several times, was "paradise" for anyone but for a football coach with a team largely made up of players earning their keep thousands of miles of away, the challenges were thin on the ground and the demands few.

Perhaps that is one criticism that can be levelled at Verbeek. For the amount of time he spent in Australia he arguably could have done a lot more in raising the quality of the A-League as a whole outside of his work with domestic players in Asian Cup preparation.

He had a notoriously fractious relationship with the Australian league and wasn't shy of his sharing dim views of it while conspicuously doing little to actively suggest how to bring it up to his expectations.

But, as he pointed out many times, that wasn't his job.

His remit was to get Australia to the World Cup, which Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy acknowledged on the announcement of Verbeek's departure: "Pim has been a great coach for the Socceroos... under his leadership the team has achieved everything we aimed to achieve and I expect he will have the team ready to perform at its best in South Africa."

And his record bears that out. Australia qualified for South Africa in a canter, second only to Japan in how quickly they got there, and achieved a historic high of #14 in the FIFA world rankings. Admittedly their group was the softest in AFC qualifying - only Japan proved tricky opposition - and some of the team's performances were underwhelming, even boring, but Italy has won a lot of World Cups that way and no one is begrudging their right to be called world champion.

Just as no one, really, can begrudge Australia's official designation as the number-one-ranked team in Asia, even if Korea Republic would give them a run for their money - and has, as we saw last September in Seoul - as the best.

Verbeek has not done a lot wrong since inheriting the care of Guus Hiddink's World Cup heroes in late 2007. Equally, though, he has not left a major impression on the team in the way Hiddink did and will not be leaving much of a legacy when he departs after South Africa.

That is why whoever comes in has a rare opportunity to take Australian football forward, once again, and mould it in his image. As a football nation, Australia is still begging to be directed, not just managed.

And that is also why the Socceroos will survive without Verbeek. He might have got them to the World Cup, but, as we saw this week, his ambitions were always far bigger.

It took an eternity but Australia has finally organised a friendly to go on top of the rather underwhelming one it had already arranged against New Zealand.

USA on June 5 at Ruimsig Stadium in Roodepoort.

According to national coach Pim Verbeek, "The USA are a very strong team and of course will be participating at the World Cup... their style of play will allow us to test our players against similar opposition to what we will face at the World Cup."

Really? Germany? Ghana? Serbia? Then, possibly, England or France?

While the Americans are a good-value team, as we saw demonstrably at the 2009 Confederations Cup, I would have thought the key encounter for the Aussies in terms of preparation was their third, against Serbia on June 23 in Nelspruit.

The two nations have never met. So while Germany has organised a friendly against Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 3, and the Serbians themselves have a hit-out against another European side, Poland, on the day before, Australia has failed to schedule a warm-up match against either a European or African side, the two continents that will provide their group opponents.

Meanwhile Japan and Korea Republic have a congested calendar between them of quality friendlies leading up into the tournament.

Even the North Koreans, who no one wants to play, have teed up Greece for May 25 and Mexico for later this week.

Hardly the best lead into the World Cup, then, for Asia's number-one-ranked team and you would have to question the wisdom of their choice of opponents. Or was the simple fact that they had not much choice at all?

Apparently Croatia and Turkey both declined invitations to come to Australia.

At time of writing a mooted Denmark friendly in South Africa has yet to be pencilled in.

One thing in Australia's favour, however, is that it already has a fair idea of the Ghanaians' style of play, having met the Black Stars in 2006 and 2008, and of course played Germany in that memorable Confederations Cup encounter in 2005, which the Nationalmannschaft ran out winning 4-3.

The Serbia preparation is the big if-only, yet Graham Arnold, Verbeek's assistant, has firsthand knowledge of the Balkan nation, his Australian Olympic side drawing 1-1 with the mysterious Europeans in Shanghai. Zoran Tosic, so impressive in that game, is a key part of Radomir Antic's plans for South Africa.

So Australia isn't completely walking blindly into an ambush.

You get the distinct feeling, though, that perhaps if they'd thrown a little bit more money around on decent preparation and less on their faltering 2018-2022 World Cup bid, like the Japanese and South Koreans, that Asia's prospects at this tournament would be looking a lot brighter.

As it stands, Asia as a front is going into South Africa hopeful rather than formidable.

If you cup your ears you can just about make out the sound of Mohamed bin Hammam grinding his teeth at his desk in AFC House in Kuala Lumpur.

The Asian Football Confederation president will have heard the news that Wellington Phoenix is just one game away from making the A-League grand final against Melbourne Victory, having defeated Newcastle Jets 3-1 at home to book a sudden-death preliminary final against Sydney FC.

Before the season the New Zealand franchise had been written off as cellar dwellers, one local pundit, former Socceroo Robbie Slater, predicting they would finish a "dismal tenth" in the ten-side competition.

They didn't, of course, finishing fourth, and now, on a five-game winning streak, are riding a wave of form, euphoria and popular support that could well see them confound the critics like Slater and contest the decider at the Emirates Stadium in Melbourne on March 20, provided they can overcome a very good Sydney without home-ground advantage (nine of their 12 wins this season have come at Westpac Stadium).

I believe they can.

And that's where it gets interesting.

Should Wellington make the grand final and then go on to beat Melbourne, the team Bin Hammam wants kicked out of the A-League after 2011 could conceivably be contesting next year's Asian Champions League.

I say conceivably because although it was widely held that Wellington, being a club based in a country outside the AFC, would not be able to play in the ACL its potential participation is being "reviewed" by the ACL with no "firm timeframe", according to Football Federation Australia, when an answer will be forthcoming, before or after the grand final.

The FFA holds the view that the winner of the A-League grand final should participate in the ACL - and it's the right view, whoever wins.

But if Wellington does beat Sydney this weekend and can prevail over Melbourne, I can't think of a team more deserving of such an honour.

Wellington's crowds this season have been extraordinary - over 32,000 turned up for the Newcastle semi, and if you remember Phoenix's antecedent, New Zealand Knights, you'll recall they were lucky to get two men and a dog to pass through the turnstiles. This one season after they recorded the lowest average attendances of any A-League club. They now sit only behind Melbourne and Sydney in crowd figures.

They've had the longest winning streak at home in A-League history (14, equal with Sydney FC) and bumped off self-styled galacticos Gold Coast twice, including a 6-0 hammering in October.

They also recruited the season's breakout star in Barbadian international and former Crystal Palace striker Paul Ifill, who was unlucky to be overlooked for the league's player of the year gong and whose 13 goals have him only second to Brisbane's Sergio van Dijk and the man he replaced in Wellington, Gold Coast's serial onion-bag shredder Shane Smeltz.

Add to the mix a coach and a bunch of players revved up with going to the World Cup for New Zealand and you have an irresistible package. Something of which Asia should be welcoming with open arms.

Though he is no fan of Phoenix and what they represent Bin Hammam should be canny enough to see the men in the yellow and black stripes will not hinder Asian football's greatest showpiece but be an ornament to it.

They have made the A-League look good and they deserve to be given a chance to do the same for Asia.

Pim Verbeek has been saying it privately since he arrived in Australia, but last week it was confirmed in the press: the Socceroos' Dutch coach would most likely be looking for a new employer once his campaign at South Africa was done and dusted.

This follows on from the announcement that his deputy, Graham Arnold, will definitely be leaving the national-team set-up to take the reins of A-League club Central Coast Mariners in season 2010/11.

Nothing is set in concrete and there has been a move among senior players to have their affable mentor stay on, but Verbeek is by nature a traveller always seeking out "fresh challenges".

He has a CV as long as my arm and in the time I've got to know the Australia coach I've taken away the impression that while he loves the easy lifestyle of Australia he misses the pressure cooker of coaching in Europe or Asia.

The biggest stage of his career thus far, South Africa 2010 will open up a host of opportunities for this hitherto anonymous man who Socceroos captain Lucas Neill famously had to look up on Google when his appointment was announced in 2007.

All of which means that Australia can go to the Asian Cup in 2011 with a whole new approach, hopefully more attack-oriented than the defensive/counter-attacking one favoured by Verbeek, whose cautious approach was originally dictated by the necessity of qualifying but now seems to have become deeply entrenched as the way the national side plays out every game, be it a qualifier or a friendly.

Who will fill the void left by Verbeek and Arnold remains to be seen, though there is no question the appointment will come from overseas.

There has been talk that Han Berger, Football Federation Australia's technical director, will step into the breach in an interim capacity to allow the FFA the luxury of not being rushed into making a decision.

Knowing the FFA's expediency, that scenario eventuating wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

But it must be avoided.

The Asian Cup isn't a Mickey Mouse tournament but Australia treats it like one. We saw that with Arnold's arrogant and shambolic effort in 2007 and witnessed it again with Verbeek's laissez-faire deployment of squads made of mostly A-League rookies to "do the job" against Indonesia, Kuwait and Oman.

The problem is they didn't. The campaign, all things considered, has been very poor. Australia shouldn't be in the position it's in on the last matchday of Asian Cup qualifying, having to get a point against the Merah Putih or hoping Oman fail to defeat Kuwait. It should have qualified already in a canter. If Indonesia wins and Oman overcomes Kuwait, a not impossible turn of events, we will have an Asian Cup without the top-ranked team in Asia.

Which would be disastrous for the tournament, for the Asian Football Confederation, for the Australian World Cup bid, for Australian football in general.

Post Verbeek, the FFA must think big, pay big and act decisively. In football, as in life, you don't get anywhere doing things in half measures.

Let's be frank: Indonesia was never in the running for the 2022 World Cup. Type in "Indonesia 2022" on Google and you get a page that says, "Executing in an invalid environment for the supplied user." Nothing else. The bid, effectively called to a close last week when the Indonesian government failed to give the necessary financial guarantees and requisite letter of approval to the Indonesian FA (PSSI), has been wiped from the face of the earth like it never existed. It limps on, however, in the imagination of Nurdin Halid, the PSSI's president, who says: "We won't withdraw our bid, even if we can't secure the letter. We'll just let FIFA decide our fate. If FIFA says ‘no' that's the end of it."

Reminds me of the black knight reduced to a bloody torso in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Despite all his limbs being hacked off by Graham Chapman's Arthur, he yells out to the departing king: "Running away eh? You yellow bastard, Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!"

Despite coming to nothing, however, Indonesia had an invaluable opportunity to show having a World Cup in South-East Asia wasn't a pipedream. That it could neutralise all the negative elements about this part of the world - pollution, chaotic transport, corruption - and present a well thought-out, cohesive, eminently doable plan that could be implemented in 2026, 2030 or 2034. Instead it's just given more ammunition to the doubters that South-East Asia is a no-go zone for an event of the magnitude and organisational sophistication of the World Cup.

They've blown it.

Which is a crying shame, because of all the places left on this earth untrammeled by the World Cup, Indonesia excites for its size, passion and potential.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. The road back to earning respect is a long one but the journey can start by the Indonesian team clawing its way back up the FIFA rankings from its present lowly position of #136 , kicking off with a face-restoring win against Pim Verbeek's spare-parts Australians in Brisbane on March 3.

But win, lose or draw, coach Benny Dollo must immediately be replaced by a foreign coach and that individual must be given the remit and money to reshape the country's football as he sees fit over an extended period of time. There can be no shortcuts in that process.

Persipura Jayapura, the national league champions and the nation's sole representative in the 2010 Asian Champions League, can also chip in by earning a couple of upsets in the ACL, which kicks off this week. The Black Pearls, however, are up against it, drawn in a tough group with Kashima Antlers, Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors and Changchun Yatai. They will do well to come away without being humiliated.

Lastly, Indonesia should pray that the Australian World Cup bid fails to secure either 2018 or 2022 and the hosting rights bypass Asia altogether. An ideal outcome would be England 2018 and USA 2022. This would open up the possibility of Indonesia submitting a joint bid with Australia for future World Cups and in my opinion this, in the short term, is the only way Indonesia is fulfill its fantasy of bringing the world's biggest event to South-East Asia.

So it's going to require a mix of hard work, profligate spending, frenzied networking and old-fashioned serendipity. But that's usually how World Cup bids are won, isn't it?

Uh oh, here we go again. It's the Guus Hiddink Magic Bus, rolling on to South Africa. Yes, the Dutch manager, who announced he would not be renewing his contract with Russia, will be at the World Cup in June. Don't be daft.

The mystery is what path he's going to take: via Africa (Nigeria, Ivory Coast) or that generous supplier to his bank account over the years, Asia (North Korea). Then there's World Cup discards Turkey, who have tabled a £3.25 million a year offer over four years.

As per Hiddink's form, there won't be any quick resolution to this farrago of speculation. Hiddink and his agent, Cees van Nieuwenhuizen, know that the longer they draw it out the steeper his price gets bumped up.

Hiddink is a master of bluff in his football and his contract negotiation skills. Lucky, for sure, talented definitely, but also a shrewd bugger. One of the wiliest cats around.
In my view, however, Hiddink should bypass the West African pair, the Stalinists and the Turks and send his CV to the Japan Football Association. If ever there was a country crying out for a man of Hiddink's inspirational leadership it is Japan.

They are a team that has all the attributes Hiddink likes to work with: highly organised, skilled, disciplined, deferential. What they don't have is a charismatic figure to rally around.

With the greatest respect to the man, current Japan coach Takeshi Okada has about as much personality as a packet of dried noodles. He looks horribly stiff. Uncomfortable with showing emotion. And his Samurai Blue are playing dreadfully, most recently being thumped 3-1 by Korea Republic at the East Asian Football Championship in Japan.

His side finished third in the four-team tournament. This followed a dour draw in a friendly against Venezuela in Oita. Ken Matsushima, one of the best Japanese writers covering Japanese football, said in his excellent "Rising Sun News" blog that the match "provided evidence to support Max Planck's theory that some forms of matter are so dense that even electrons are unable to penetrate them... if only Planck had been able to get a sample of coach Okada's skull, he might have resolved this scientific theory once and for all."

More troubling than Okada's results and Matsushima's excoriating critique, however, was this response from JFA chief Motoaki Inukai to a welter of fan disquiet: "At this stage, I am not intending to replace the coach before the World Cup but we will decide collectively."

"At this stage" is universal football code for watch your back.

Japan has set the target of making the semi-finals at South Africa 2010 but on current form they're going to have enough trouble winning a match in their group: Netherlands, Denmark and Cameroon should have a field day with the Asians.

But with Hiddink in charge Japan might just stand a chance. His knowledge of Dutch football, of course, is second to none and as manager of Korea Republic he faced up against both Cameroon and Denmark when he took the reins in 2001. It goes without saying what he did the following year in Korea.

At this level of football what gifted players like Yatsuhito Endo, Kengo Nakamura and Shinji Okazaki need is not to be bashed black and blue on the training paddock but to look over to the sideline and see someone who's been there and done that. Australia's 2006 team said Hiddink's presence alone lifted them to achieve things they dared not dream.

The problem for Okada is, having never coached outside Japan, he's proverbially been nowhere. And his players are performing like they know it.

I'm happy to see the Football Association of Malaysia is now paying for its own shortsightedness with the revelation that Selangor, the country's premier football team, was unable to hire any foreign players to join the club in its 2010 AFC Cup campaign, which begins on February 24 against Binh Duong of Vietnam.

Not because any weren't available, rather none felt the need to bother signing on with a club that was likely to be knocked out early. Who could blame them? It wasn't like they could fall back on earning a wage in the Malaysian Super League, either, because in Malaysian football, of course, foreigners are banned.

They were much better off looking to land contracts elsewhere.

"We are left with no choice but to field an all-local side in the competition," said club secretary Hamidin Amin. "We have tried looking for players but the good ones don't want to join us for a short stint.

We know [Binh Duong] have foreign players and we can do nothing about that. But I still think that our present batch of players can take us to the Round of 16 in which it will be very tough for us to advance."

You don't say. Selangor are due for a hiding. At this level of Asian competition, even a rung below the AFC Champions League, you don't get anywhere without foreign players, as the Malaysian sides that were dumped from the 2009 edition, Kedah and Johor, will attest.

Al Kuwait Kaifan, last year's winners, has foreigners on their books, as do runners-up Al-Karamah of Syria. In fact, you would have to go through all the 32 squad lists of clubs in the East and West zones but I'm pretty sure the only other side going it completely with homegrown players is lowly Victory SC of the Maldives.

So for the FAM to cling on to this notion that in excluding foreigners from its league it is bettering the cause of the Malaysian game is utterly delusional.

The interests of the Malaysian game, of course, would be served by having a Malaysian side progress deep into the finals of the AFC Cup, even winning the trophy and qualifying for the AFC Champions League.

That would involve playing club football at the highest level in Asia, against the best sides from Australia, Japan, South Korea and China.

But in six editions of the Cup so far Malaysia hasn't even been able to make the semi-finals. The best result was in 2008, when Perak and Kedah both made the quarter-finals, but they hardly covered themselves in glory: Perak got smashed 7-0 on aggregate by Safa of Lebanon and Kedah fared little better, whipped 7-1 over two legs by Qatari side Al-Muharraq.

Things have to change.

Malaysian football, despite the success of the Harimau Muda at the SEA Games in Laos, is going nowhere. It is being left for dead by the growth of football in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, and these are all leagues that wouldn't be where they are today without foreign players.

The world game is just that: the world game. It's time Malaysia opened its eyes to the fact and let the world in.

Is there any rhyme or reason in football in Asia? I've been covering the Asian beat for years now and not a week goes by where I'm not surprised by some of the things that occasionally bubble to the surface of the 46-member Asian Football Confederation gumbo.

Last week, in my ESPN STAR Sports column, I questioned how AFC president Mohamed bin Hammam could condone having a team of French mercenaries, Etoile FC, play in the S-League while hectoring Football Federation Australia to hook New Zealand-based side Wellington Phoenix from the A-League.

Now it's all got a bit ridiculous.

The Harimau Muda, a team of very good under-21 Malaysian players that recently won the SEA Games title in Laos, were knocked back from joining the very same S-League, despite the fact they were Asian (fancy that) and there is a sizeable Malaysian expat population in Singapore and not much of a French one.

So the team has instead opted to play in - this is not a misprint - Slovakia.

Last time I checked Slovakia was in the middle of Europe. But the exchange rate isn't bad.

The Malaysians will play 14 rounds in the ten-team Slovakian National League, the country's second division from February through to May. They are standing in for RU Sport Podbrezova, which couldn't finish the season. The league is currently in its winter recess.

Now fair play to the boys. This is a great opportunity for them. As coach Mohd Azraai Khor says, "It's a great move by the FAM to allow our young players to compete in a high-level environment in Europe. There are not many opportunities for Malaysian teams to compete in that part of the world."

You're telling me. But it makes a mockery of the restrictions that Hammam himself maintains are in place to prevent such inter-confederation exchanges and which he uses to back up his position on Phoenix.

Which is fine by me - I think it's fantastic to have teams playing anywhere they like with whoever will have them - and through precedent it opens up the very real possibility in the future of having a South-East Asian Super League, comprising the best teams from Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia. If a Malaysian team can play in Slovakia, the possibilities are endless.

So, please, Mr President, can you clarify what your position actually is?

As soon as we know that, the Phoenix and the A-League can get on with what they should have been entitled to do all along - building a football club - without being held to ransom by the AFC's apparent whims.

The biggest eruption over the Australian A-League weekend was not the right old barney between John Hutchinson and Michael Thwaite during the Gold Coast United vs Central Coast Mariners match in Gosford but the hullabaloo over the benching of Robbie Fowler before the North Queensland Fury vs Brisbane Roar derby in Townsville.

As has been exhaustively reported throughout Asia, Fury coach Ian Ferguson, a former Rangers man, thought Fowler was looking a bit "jaded" and wanted to freshen things up a bit by going to a 4-1-4-1 formation and the former Liverpool striker wasn't going to be the lead man. That job was for the Netherlands Antilles' Dyron Daal.

Essentially Ferguson asked for his marquee player - an A-League appellation for a player that is paid above the salary cap - to sit on the bench.

But Fowler, so it appeared, threw a hissy fit and refused, taking his place up in the terraces with his kid, where he spent most of the game talking on his mobile phone, presumably moaning to a friend.

Meanwhile his Fury teammates scrapped their way to a 1-1 draw and, had Fowler been riding the pine as he was allegedly asked, might have snaffled a victory. That's what he'd been put there for: to give Ferguson some bite off the bench if he needed it.

Seems fair sort of reasoning to me. Yet afterwards Ferguson was pilloried by former English Premier League players and now TV commentators Mark Bosnich and Robbie Slater for his decision. They couldn't believe he would have the hide to ask Fowler - a 34-year-old well past his prime - to be a reserve; that he hadn't had the good grace to give Fowler the option of not being on the bench at all and instead be left out of the squad altogether for some spurious made-up reason to save face.
Excuse me?

Who's the manager here? What's the manager's job? It wouldn't matter if it was Fowler or Lionel Messi or Cesc Fabregas on Ferguson's bench, the buck stops with the coach.

Guus Hiddink benched both Harry Kewell and Tim Cahill, Australia's biggest stars, at the World Cup and it was a masterstroke. But Ferguson tries the same tactic with admittedly less success in the A-League and he's condemned for embarrassing Fowler.

On Monday the club took the step of having both men air their grievances behind close doors, after which Fowler was ostensibly let off the hook due to "misunderstanding".

Said Fury chairman Don Matheson: "I've spoken to them today and realise there has been a misunderstanding - Ian wanted to play a particular formation and that included utilising Robbie as an impact player off the bench and Robbie believed he wasn't part of the squad - and there has been an unfortunate outcome because of that misunderstanding."

Right. So what was stopping Ferguson from cupping his hands from the sidelines and yelling, "Hey, Robbie, not up there, mate - down here"

And having Fowler run into the shed to put on his gear?

Don't misunderstand this, then, Mr Fowler: in my opinion, you acted like a right plonker. A five-year-old girl. And not, I believe, with the behaviour of a professional sportsman and, worse, not like a teammate.

You've let down your coach, your team, your club and the fans. No one's humiliated you. You've humiliated yourself.

Pardon me for asking, but just how is it that Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam can have conniptions about Wellington Phoenix being in the A-League, even threaten to take away Australia's Asian Champions League spots unless the New Zealand club becoming an "Australian entity", yet not say boo when a French team joins the S-League?       

In case you missed it, Etoile FC has joined the 12-team Singaporean competition, made up entirely of French players. Names attached to the project include David Ginola and Lucien Mettomo. It is the first European side to join Singapore's rather unconventional league, which over the years has played host with varying success to "satellite" club sides from South Korea, Japan and China, as well as thrown-together disasters such as Sporting Afrique FC. Chinese Super League champion Beijing Guoan is the latest Asian football club to give its imprimatur to a franchise in the island state.

But Etoile is remarkable even by Singaporean football's eccentric standards.

As Red Card's R. Sasikumar, a marketing consultant to Etoile, explained last week to MediaCorp: "It's fantastic, especially considering that we managed to put this together in such a short time... the players are still in Lyon, but they will arrive in Singapore on January 24. They are going through their medical and working out final contract details, important issues that we want to sort out before they get on the plane."

In short, a collection of mercenaries from another confederation with no connection to Singapore whatsoever. They haven't even arrived in the country and the season kicks off on February 1.

Yet Wellington Phoenix, a club with eight Australians (ie, Asians) on its books, is considered a dangerous intruder in the AFC by Hammam, and he has given the North Island side until 2011 to "re-register themselves in Australia as an Australian club under the law of Australia", in so doing being limited to employing just three New Zealanders (ie, Oceanians) as "foreign" players (they presently have nine in their squad), or be expelled from the A-League.

If Football Federation Australia, the umbrella organisation for the A-League, doesn't comply with his edict, Hammam will prevent Australia from participating in the ACL.

How does this compute?

Can we really call Etoile FC a "Singaporean entity" or "Asian entity" even if the operation were registered, which I assume it is, as a Singaporean company?

Hardly. All the players are French nationals. The coach, yet to be appointed, is likely to be French. France, of course, is a member of UEFA, not the AFC.

So why the double standard, Mr President?

Well, at least Afshin Ghotbi was spared another stoning of his car by steering Iran to a convincing 3-1 win over Singapore last week, a result that ensures Team Melli is going to the 2011 Asian Cup. What, however, is going to be the fate of Bryan Robson if he can't get Thailand to Qatar by snaffling a point at the very least against Ghotbi's men in Tehran? Having his buttocks dragged on gravel while harnessed to an angry elephant?

Already the list of casualties for Asia's premier football event is an alarming one: Indonesia and Vietnam, which delivered the best crowds and atmosphere at the 2007 edition, are out. Malaysia is also gone, but to the relief of just about everybody in the world, including most of the team's fans. Outside of their heroic SEA Games team, the country's football is atrocious and frankly doesn't deserve to be at the Asian Cup. Oman, meanwhile, which put Australia to the sword in Bangkok in 2007, has left its hopes of qualification to its very last game and needs to win against Kuwait in Muscat.

But it's not all grim reading.

Syria progressed through the qualifying round undefeated, and returns to the Asian Cup for the first time since 1996, and India, of course, brimming with momentum since winning the Nehru Cup if a tad fortunate to have been given a bye in qualifying (more on that later), will be the romantic's team: they return from over 25 years in the Asian football wilderness. Jordan, too, up against Singapore in Amman, have a chance to get to their first Asian Cup since 2004 if they beat the Lions and the Thais don't upset Iran.

So there are some nice stories to have come out of the qualification phase.

But the likely absence of South-East Asian teams and the conceivable non-involvement of DPR Korea, a team competing in the 2010 World Cup, means the tournament could fall well short of representing the rich diversity and astonishing breadth of football on the world's biggest continent.

The case of the North Koreans is most interesting.

The Chollima, World Cup finalists in 1966 and 2010, did not enter the group phase of qualifiers for Qatar 2011, despite playing in the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup won by India and the recently completed Doha International Friendship Football Tournament in Qatar, which it won. It has only played in two Asian Cups since they began in 1956.

Instead, it was given a free pass into the AFC Challenge Cup next month in Sri Lanka, pitted against India, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.

All the Koreans (ranked #86 is Asia) have to do is finish runners-up, because if India (#134) wins having already won the previous Challenge Cup tournament, second place qualifies for Qatar 2011.

And to get there they have to tackle the might of... wait for it... Tajikistan (#165), Myanmar (#140), Sri Lanka (#151), Bangladesh (#149), Kyrgyzstan (#159) and Turkmenistan (#141).

The AFC Challenge Cup was supposed to be a tournament for emerging football countries in Asia but instead its being used as a way of sneaking in some of the most politically powerful football nations in Asia - North Korea, India - into the Asian Cup through the proverbial back door.

In my view it's a disgrace. And Indonesia (#120), Vietnam (#123), Malaysia (#160), Thailand (#105) and Oman (#79) - countries who fell or are about to fall trying to get there the hard way - should be as mad as hell about it.

And if they care anything for fair play, so should all Asian football fans.

Football is a business. And it can be a dirty one, as anyone who follows the travails of Asian football well knows. Usually the sleaze and muck is associated with betting, but as the Joel Griffiths saga taking place in Australia right now attests, it can encompass even the most mundane business transactions.

To bring you up to speed, Griffiths is a striker for a club called the Newcastle Jets, which plays in the Australian A-League. He is under contract to them till 2012.

In 2008 the Jets secured one of two spots in the 2009 Asian Champions League allocated to Australian teams, Joel catching the eye of their first-up ACL opponents, Chinese Super League club Beijing Guoan, when his brother, Ryan, joined them on loan from fellow CSL club Liaoning FC.

What followed was rather unusual: Newcastle, yet to kick a ball in anger in the ACL, was loath to release their marquee player but Griffiths wanted out. Beijing tabled an offer for a permanent deal. Newcastle rejected it, and when the two parties couldn't agree on a figure a compromise was reached: the Australian would be allowed to go to China on a AUD$500,000 "loan deal" for 10 months so long as he was ready to report for duty back at Newcastle in January 2010 to play the second half of the 2009/10 A-League season.

During that time there was also an option on the table for the Chinese club: they could have Griffiths for good after the 2009/10 A-League season if they paid $350,000 before the loan deal expired on December 31, 2009.

In March 2009, Newcastle duly played its first game in the ACL and lost 2-0 to Beijing goals scored by Ryan and Joel. Newcastle won the return leg and heroically made the ACL quarter-finals with a spare-parts team but finished the A-League season in last place.

Beijing was knocked out in the ACL group rounds, winning only one of six matches, but won the CSL title with the Griffiths brothers playing a pivotal part in their charge to the final.

So the Chinese side, not unexpectedly, wanted to keep the partnership intact for their tilt at back-to-back ACL campaigns and asked for revised terms from Newcastle, which (from the Australian version of events) entailed a reduced price and the striker's immediate availability. The Jets rightfully rejected it and continued their preparations to start the New Year with their star striker back on deck.

The Chinese club, according to Newcastle, then rejoindered by meeting the original $350K asking price, but on the caveat Griffiths be available to be registered on January 11 as a Beijing player for February's kickoff of the ACL. The Jets, sticking to their guns, again rejected the deal.

That should have been the end of it. But this week, sensationally, Griffiths decided to not turn up to training in Newcastle, not just once but twice, saying he wanted to go back to China. He's also enlisted the help of the Australian players' association, the PFA, and had them send a letter of demand to the Jets seeking a release. If the club fails to meet their demands, they are threatening to file a grievance procedure with Football Federation Australia.

Con Constantine, the bullish owner of the Jets, is livid about the impasse and claims if his club "lose this case it would be the end of contracts because they would not be worth the paper they are written on... if this thing has to go before arbitration, it sends the wrong message to every football player in this country. [It] means you can sign a contract today and a disgruntled player can turn around and say, 'Thank you very much but I'm going.'"

He's absolutely right.

Griffiths has behaved appallingly, as players often do when they get stars - and dollar signs - in their eyes.

At the very least he has an obligation as a professional footballer to turn up to training.

But Beijing, if Newcastle's account is to be believed, has also conducted itself poorly. The Jets might be a hick club in the wider Asian scheme of things but they are not mugs. They were good enough to let their most valuable commodity go in the first place when they didn't want him to leave, in so doing handicapping their maiden ACL campaign, and so deserved to have their original terms met to the letter. Beijing, it appears, has not done them that courtesy.

Worse, the saga has cast a pall over the merit of loan deals themselves.

From now on why would any club in the AFC agree to such temporary arrangements if this is the kind of trouble that goes with it?

Sadly the palaver between Newcastle and Beijing has done little to enhance the shaky confidence that already exists when doing club-to-club business in Asia.

Asian football is kicking along nicely in administration, coaching, commercial profile and overall quality and, in so doing, achieving new benchmarks of professionalism every day.

But, as the Griffiths case abundantly proves, trust remains a commodity in conspicuously short supply.

The next round of Asian Cup qualifiers on January 6 is offering up a welter of fascinating match-ups - Australia vs Kuwait, Japan vs Yemen, Vietnam vs Lebanon, Indonesia vs Oman - but none more so than the one taking place at Singapore's National Stadium.

The Group E clash sees leaders Iran take on second-placed Singapore and both teams are in a virtual must-win situation with just two games left to play to assure passage to Qatar 2011. Iran coach Afshin Ghotbi, however, has a little more riding on the result than his opposite number, Radojko Avramovic, who has already exceeded expectations by earning victories over Jordan and Thailand. Nothing short of Ghotbi's job is on the line and possibly his entire football career in the Islamic Republic.

When he came into the Iran coaching position in April 2009 with three World Cup qualifiers left to play, no one could begrudge Ghotbi for failing to get Team Melli to South Africa 2010. His predecessors, including former national-team star and coaching lightweight Ali Daei, had left him with next to no chance, two of those matches involving away assignments against DPR Korea and Korea Republic, which ended in stalemates. So Ghotbi's honeymoon with Iranian football fans survived the ignominy of qualification failure - something remarkable, because for years Iran has been the Bermuda Triangle of coaching jobs: many take it on, most disappear quickly without trace.

But after November's catastrophic 1-0 loss to Jordan in Amman, the hitherto supportive Iranian media turned on Ghotbi - an utterly preposterous state of affairs given he is only one result away from qualifying for Qatar and has managed to get this far with a bunch of talented but lazy slackers. Meanwhile Daei has quietly returned to the Iran coaching circus, taking over Ghotbi's old coaching gig at Tehran club Persepolis. Only a blinkered fool would discount his ambition to return to the top football position in Iran and supplant Ghotbi.

So far, the Iran Football Federation has given indications it will stand by its man. But Ghotbi will be under no illusions as to how quickly he will be removed from his post should he fail against the Serbian-coached South-East Asians, which Daei's Team Melli thumped 6-0 the last time they met, in January 2009 at the Azadi. Failing to qualify for a World Cup when you had scant preparation is one thing. Failing to qualify for an Asian Cup when you did is unforgivable. In a four-nation lead-up tournament in Doha this week, Iran fell to the hosts 3-2, losing right at the death after an egregious blunder from right-back Hossein Kaebi. They could count themselves unlucky except for the fact the first they conceded was also a comedy of errors. Excellent in attack, unbelievably awful in defence. Ghotbi must be tearing his hair out.

Iran should be good enough to defeat Singapore, which drew 0-0 with Oman yesterday at Bishan Stadium, but at home in humid, sticky conditions the Lions can be a tough proposition for any side, as Australia found out before the 2007 Asian Cup. They've also got nothing to lose by becoming the first Singapore side to qualify for Asian football's premier event. They can do that if they defeat Iran and Jordan draw with Thailand in Bangkok.

So by no means is it going to be a doddle for Ghotbi's men. Iran is going to have to play some good football against Mali and North Korea in Qatar in the next few days if they're going to help their harried coach get through this crisis.

Ghotbi has survived all sorts of things over 30 years - the Islamic Revolution, anti-American propaganda and the snakepit of Iranian politics - but nothing will save him if he fails in Singapore.

Congratulations are in order to the Malaysian under-23 men's team that prevailed 1-0 over Vietnam to win the 25th edition of the SEA Games gold medal in Vientiane, Laos.

For anyone who remembers the 2007 Asian Cup, when the senior side embarrassed South-East Asia by shipping 12 goals and scoring one, the result marks something of a remarkable turnaround for the tarnished reputation of Malaysian football. Credit to coach K. Rajagopal. Malaysian football fans, and there are only a few going around these days, have cause to celebrate.

Rajagopal says "the success of the Young Tigers proves that we are making inroads" and he's right. No one saw this result coming - I'm sure the coach and the players themselves are as surprised as anybody at having accounted for the might of Thailand and Vietnam.

But the result should not be allowed to gloss over some unpalatable facts about the Malaysian game, particularly the car wreck that is the national league.

Once a colossus in the South-East Asian football scene, the Malaysian Super League is going backwards at a rate of knots while Indonesia's Liga and Thailand's Premier League are booming: crummy standards, catastrophically poor crowds (bar the FA Cup final in April), minimal media coverage, accusations of racism and corruption.

A real anomaly when you consider just how passionate and knowledgeable most Malaysians fans are about football.

Scores of pages are devoted to the English and continental European leagues in the nation's newspapers.

And this is the bizarre paradox of Malaysian football.

Outward looking in one respect, keen to absorb the best football the world has to offer. Completely insular in another by forbidding foreign footballers to play in the MSL.

A real basket case.

The Football Association of Malaysia will likely attempt to use the success of the Young Tigers at the SEA Games and the national under-20 side, the Harimau Muda, in the second-division Malaysian Premier League as evidence that its decision to ban imported players is the right one.

In my opinion, however, if they're really serious about restoring Malaysian football to its former glory and bring back the fans they should be bringing in as many foreigners as possible.

Japan, South Korea, Australia and China - the best leagues in Asia - all employ foreign players and regard them as a necessity in improving the standard of their football. Young players and coaches learn from them and look up to them. Fans pay good money to see them. What on earth is possessing the FAM to think it knows better?

It might be worth pointing out to the FAM that the English Premier League, the competition Malaysian football fans worship, would be nothing without the legions of French, German, Italian, Spanish, East European, African, Russian, South American, Australian and Asian players that adorn it. It is a league that truly embodies the richness of the world game.

All the MSL embodies, arguably, is xenophobia.

It's time for change. It's time for Malaysian football to open up again.

Australia might regard itself as one of Asia's premier football nations - and at least on paper it is, being the number-one-ranked country in the Asian Football Confederation. But as events down under last week attest, it is a horribly divided one.

First Andrew Demetriou, the boss of the Australian Football League, announced his organisation would not countenance the idea of giving up use of Etihad Stadium in Victoria during any FIFA World Cup staged in Australia, either in 2018 or 2022.

Etihad Stadium is the premier rectangular arena in Melbourne and used as a home ground by the city's A-League side Melbourne Victory.

Then David Gallop, the chief executive of the National Rugby League, caused ripples of his own, demanding compensation to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars from the FFA for the disruption by any World Cup to his competition, which is the number-one code in the states of New South Wales and Queensland.

Football Federation Australia couldn't have asked for worse timing, the spot fires from the AFL and NRL coming at the same time the FFA was preparing to lodge its bidding agreement with FIFA, the document that contractually binds Australia to submitting a World Cup bid proposal in May 2010. This followed on from much schmoozing of FIFA heavies in Cape Town during the World Cup draw.

In fact Ben Buckley, the FFA's CEO, was so perturbed by the bad publicity and the huge public debate it ignited that he wrote an open letter to the media, letting them know "our bid for the 2018-2022 FIFA World Cup is well and truly on track" and it was "not constructive to go into detail about the media comments from other sporting codes".

To a point he is right. The issues concerning the chiefs of the AFL and NRL are ancillary and easily resolvable. Australia makes an impressive case to host a World Cup and there is no reason to think it does not have a very good chance of winning the 2022 tournament for Asia.

But the Australian federation needs to start putting as much effort into selling the World Cup to its own people as it is to FIFA's executive committee. There is, I hate to say it, a touch of arrogance in the way the FFA has rolled out its campaign so far, simply thinking that the AFL and NRL are going to be sold on the idea of having a World Cup because it's the biggest event in the world and, in the words of my SBS-TV colleague Les Murray, "a feast of global diversity, a quadrennial carnival of fun, an exposition of worldly cultural goods whose scent seduces the world".

It may be all those things but it's also a clear and present danger to their very existence. Having a World Cup played in Australia is the AFL's and NRL's worst nightmare. To all intents and purposes they are being asked to lay out the welcome mat to the agent of their own demise.

There are benefits for everybody, of course, but they need to be better articulated and enumerated. The Olympics got universal support from Australia's football codes because they threatened nobody. The World Cup, however, does.

So the FFA must address these concerns coming from the AFL and NRL as priority. There's five months to go before the Bid Book is due to be presented to FIFA and every detail has to be watertight, locked in, with universal support and without caveats.

You don't judge books by their covers but by content. Australia's still has way too many blank pages.

So what to make of Asia's prospects after the World Cup draw held in Cape Town last weekend?

Well, they are very dim. All four Asian teams - Australia, Japan, Korea Republic and DPR Korea - have been dealt "groups of death", the worst probably being DPR Korea's Group G: Ivory Coast, Portugal and Brazil. A true nightmare. Japan follows close behind in Group E. Netherlands, Denmark and Cameroon. Korea Republic, meanwhile, is pitched against Argentina, Nigeria and Greece in Group B.

The amusing thing is the media in Australia is talking of the Socceroos' draw in Group D - Germany, Serbia and Ghana - as being one of the two toughest at the World Cup, but from an Asian perspective I think they've got off lightly.

Of all the Asian entrants, then, as in 2006, they are the most favoured to progress to the second round but it will be a big ask.
Australia has never beaten Germany in two meetings (1974 and 2006), never played Serbia (excepting its earlier incarnation as Yugoslavia), but has the wood over Ghana since they first played in 1995: in six meetings, Australia has won four, drawn one and lost one, their last meeting a 1-0 victory to the Socceroos in Sydney in May 2008.

The Ghanaians, however, are playing on African soil in an African World Cup and this has to be a factor that is going to tip favouritism their way. In fact, the Socceroos' toughest match could well be their second one against Ghana on 24 June in Rustenburg.

Korea Republic, Asia's form team, has never beaten Argentina in three meetings since 1984, but defeated Nigeria two times from the same amount of matches and remains unvanquished against Greece in two, the last their famous 1-0 victory over the Euro 2004 champions in London in 2007.

Japan has defeated Cameroon twice in three meetings, the most recent in 2007, only played Netherlands once (this year, in Enschede) losing 3-0, and has to go back to 1971 to find the last time it played Denmark, a 3-2 victory to the Danes in Copenhagen.

North Korea has never played Brazil or Ivory Coast but pushed Portugal to the brink the last time they met, losing 5-3 after leading 3-0 at the 1966 World Cup. That match, which was also remarkable for Eusebio scoring four goals, was one of the greatest in Asian football history and the rematch in Cape Town will mark almost 43 years since the Chollima shocked the world by making the quarter-finals. They won't have the advantage of being total unknowns this time around.

So it's a fairly sobering outlook for Asia at South Africa 2010, which is not totally unexpected but at World Cups no one gets an easy ride, especially minnows from this part of the planet.

Well, except New Zealand, which only has to play Italy, Paraguay and Slovakia in Group F.

On top of Bahrain's playoff defeat it's another slap in the face for the Asian Football Confederation and serves another reminder why absorbing Oceania into Asia and making the road to the World Cup just a little bit harder for the Kiwis could well be in the best interests of the AFC.

The draw for South Africa 2010 might not be the one Mohamed bin Hammam had hoped for, but perversely one or two shock results Asia's way could make a bigger impact for the confederation than one team's progression beyond the second round.

With the caliber of opponents on offer, the opportunity of shocking the world all over again is there for the taking.

Apparently China's President Hu Jintao is "very concerned" about his country's football league and underperforming national men's team. He has every right to be.

China, a nation of 1.3 billion people, just scrapes into the FIFA top 100 and this week 16 football officials, players and coaches, including a former vice-president of the Guangzhou FA, were arrested following a six-month match-fixing investigation.

Investigative journalist Declan Hill, author of The Fix, calls China the "ground zero of match fixing" and dismisses the Chinese Super League as "a complete joke". On top of all this, the number of player registrations has dropped from 650,000 over a decade ago to 30,000 today. It's hard to imagine how much worse it can get for Chinese football.

Despite this, you would be hard pressed to find anybody in the world of football who would bet against China being the most likely host of the next World Cup to take place in Asia.

A quintet of AFC nations - Australia, Indonesia, Qatar, South Korea and Japan - are currently vying for the hosting rights of the 2018 or 2022 tournaments, but it's virtually guaranteed 2018 will go to Europe and the United States has a strong claim to 2022, not having had a World Cup since the massively successful USA 94.

Which leaves China almost as the World Cup host by default for 2026, because it meets all the criteria for FIFA's avaricious executive committee: truckloads of sponsors, a TV viewing bonanza, ready-made stadia, a track record in putting on big events (hello, Beijing Olympics) and, most importantly, the opportunity to leave behind a positive legacy in the most populous nation on earth.

What more could FIFA possibly want? Very little, which is why Australia, regarded as the strongest of the Asian bids for 2018 or 2022, should be very, very worried.

The Australian camp has made a big pitch to FIFA in capturing the "legacy" aspect, but when you do the math - Australia, 20 million, versus China, 1.3 billion - it's a no-brainer. They might have been better off just not mentioning it at all.

What is mitigating against China, though, is its own inertia, and that is why China's vice-president Xi Jinping made the strategic ploy last month of mentioning the government's desire to take Chinese football "to the top level".

It was a message to FIFA that it hasn't given up on the game - and that is all the sport's world governing body really needs to hear. There's a lot of cleaning up that can be done in 16 years.

It was said at the time that China's decision to withdraw from the race for 2018/2022 was the best present Australia could have had. In reality, it's probably the worst possible outcome.

If China had gone toe-to-toe for 2018/2022, Australia could have accounted for it easily, being in a far more organised position with its bid and with the state of its own game. But by delaying its pitch, China has made it clear that by 2026 it can be ready for the World Cup, thus obviating the need for FIFA to award the tournament to Asia before then.

Australia won't give up, of course, and it shouldn't - bid leader Frank Lowy's motto is to "push the limits" - but I'm of the view we won't see a World Cup down under for two decades still.

In football, unfortunately, as in life, the mouse rarely roars. But elephants do.

Times are changing in Asian football. On Tuesday afternoon at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam announced a staggering new deal with sports marketing company World Sport Group that is expected to deliver the Confederation US$1 billion between now and 2020.

As "The President" explained to me in a roundtable conference afterwards, the AFC will be making in a year what used to take a decade.

That same day Bin Hammam hosted the AFC Annual Awards, a lavish affair at the capital's Shangri-La Hotel, with two waiters for each guest in the enormous ballroom.

The President entered the room like royalty, and he sat next to it: the handsome son of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad Khalifa Al-Thani, the public face of the Qatar 2022 bid, is a heavy hitter, probably the heaviest on a long table of some 80 VIPs that included Frank Lowy, Peter Kenyon, David Gill and Chung Mong-joon. But this was Bin Hammam's show, the proceedings carefully choreographed to create a halo around the man who has plans to one day lead FIFA.

For all the money that was spent on the production, though, and there was clearly a fair bit of it splashed out, the awards night was a curiously stilted affair.

Perhaps this can't be helped, as Asia is such an enormous continent and at such gatherings the clash of cultures is palpable - Tajiks, Koreans, Sri Lankans, Uzbekis, Saudis, Australians and Japanese have very little in common and good, clear English is a rare commodity in acceptance speeches. But is there really a need to hand out such superfluous gongs such as Men's Match Commissioner of the Year or Women's Assistant Referee of the Year?

More to the point, how can the Iraqi FA, which has just been suspended by FIFA, be nominated for Men's Association of the Year? Or Australia be in the mix for Women's Association of the Year when the Young Matildas made headlines around the world for beating up their Chinese opponents in a match in August?

The abiding impression one gets from some of the awards are that they are politically geared, designed to keep happy various voting blocs of this unwieldy conglomeration of football nations.

But then the AFC can get things right, like selecting Korea Republic for Men's National Team of the Year (a brave but correct decision over Pim Verbeek's Aussies) or handing out its biggest award, Men's Player of the Year, to Gamba Osaka's brilliant playmaker Yasuhito Endo. Endo missed out in 2008, unjustly, I believe, to Uzbekistan's Server Djeparov, but class is enduring and there would have been a riot if he hadn't won it this time around.

One of the recurring themes in the speeches on the night was "improvement" and Asia is very much doing that in leaps and bounds in its administration. There is still much work to on the field, and in areas such as coaching and the professionalisation of domestic leagues, but the mission has started and there is a lot of money and motivation behind it.

Bin Hammam might be quietly spoken and unfailingly polite, but don't discount the man's driving ambition to make Asia a true power in world football. On the evidence of what I've seen this week in Kuala Lumpur, he's going to get his wish sooner than he thinks.

Next week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, there will be an outbreak of vigorous backslapping as the who's who of Asian football gather for the AFC Awards. But amid the revelry there will be pause to consider just how the biggest confederation in the world can continue jockeying for five places at the World Cup when for next year's tournament it could only manage to qualify four: Japan, Australia, Korea Republic and DPR Korea. Bahrain, of course, succumbed to lowly New Zealand in the AFC-OFC playoff series this week in Wellington.

Only three Asian teams currently sit in the FIFA top 50, yet CONMEBOL, the South American confederation, has seven, despite being allocated the same amount of berths (4.5) and looking like qualifying five (Uruguay face Costa Rica in Montevideo on Wednesday in their second-leg playoff, taking a 1-0 lead away.) This on top of a poor continental showing at Germany 2006, when no Asian team progressed beyond the first round. (Australia, for the record, was still part of Oceania, only being admitted to the AFC in 2007.

Asian football might the "future" but it is not throwing its weight around with much effect and on present performances the push for five berths can't be sustained.

The pressure is very much on, then, for the AFC to start recording some impactful results in South Africa, with two teams getting beyond the second round as a minimum. (An Asian side hasn't gone into the Round of 16 since Korea Republic and Japan managed to do it together in 2002, with the Taeguk Warriors reaching the semi-finals.)

We will know how much of a shot they have when the official draw for the World Cup is made in South Africa on December 4. Of the four teams, I believe that on form
Korea Republic has the best chance of progression, followed by Australia, Japan and DPR Korea, though it is all academic when their opponents are still unknown.

A repeat of the collective AFC performance at Germany 2006 would constitute an unmitigated disaster for the confederation.

That's not just in regards World Cup places, but also hosting World Cups.

No less than five members of the Asian confederation - Japan, Korea, Qatar, Indonesia and Australia - are in the midst of lobbying for the hosting rights to the 2018 or 2022 tournaments. If Asia tanks at South Africa 2010, chances are it will also tank when FIFA's executive committee comes around to voting on the bids in December next year.

So AFC president Mohamed bin Hammam will be hoping for much more from Asia in 2010, and so he should.

There's not just a World Cup to play for come June 11, but nothing short of Asia's football future.

Much has been said and written over the past year about the Asian Football Confederation's rather hare-brained if noble idea to have a one-off Asian Champions League final in Tokyo, irrespective of who made it. "Crazy," said one camp. "Ambitious," said the other.

In the final analysis, 25,000 people turned up for the match between Pohang Steelers and Al-Ittihad, which the Koreans ended up winning 2-1, and there were cases to be made for both sides of the argument.

The turnout, let's not mince words, was poor, even by Japanese standards. A stadium that is at less-than-half capacity does not make for a good image on television, which defeats the point of having a stand-alone final in the first place. A final should always be full. It is the exclamation point of a competition. The one day when everything - colour, excitement, action - needs to be turned on full throttle.

The ACL final was anything but.

Yet the AFC singularly took a very brave decision to test the appeal of a one-game final, in accordance with the way things are done in Europe, and it should be commended for making a leap of faith. The concept doesn't work in Asia, we know that much now, but someone had to take the risk in the first place and there is nothing wrong with taking a risk.

The AFC under Mohamed bin Hammam has taken Asian football to places his predecessors could not or would not dare.

While he is not to everyone's taste, as we saw with the bitterly contested elections for the presidency, no one could begrudge him his grand vision.

It's worth noting the AFC Cup, Asia's second-tier club competition, which was won in dramatic fashion a week ago by Kuwait Sports Club 2-1 over Syria's Al Karamah, has enjoyed its most successful instalment ever, with crowds going gangbusters. Nearly 600,000 people filed through the turnstiles in the group and knockout matches, with 38,000 turning up for the South China AA vs Kuwait SC semi in Hong Kong - 13,000 more than turned up for the ACL final in Tokyo.

In the nominations for AFC Player of the Year, too, we are starting to see a refreshing recognition of the breadth and richness of the Asian football diorama - Maldivians, Indonesians, Bahrainis, Qataris - even if the award criteria and the voting process is, in my opinion, fundamentally flawed.

This weekend the Asian football year reaches its culmination with the second-leg World Cup playoff between Bahrain and Oceania champions New Zealand in Wellington.

It's taken a long time to get here - the whole shebang kicked off in October 2007, with Bangladesh playing Tajikistan in Dhaka, and swallowed up some big football nations: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and China among them.

That a tiny nation such as Bahrain is still alive in November 2009 is a mark of how healthy Asian football really is.

So Bin Hammam has cause to be proud. And we have cause to celebrate being part of this wonderful part of the world we call "Asia".

Our football might not match Europe yet, but we're on our way.

Thailand's finance minister Korn Chatikavanij has his heart in the right place with his idea that ASEAN countries unite together and make a bid to host the FIFA World Cup.

He mooted the concept at the recently convened summit of ASEAN leaders in Hua Hin and, if pie in the sky, it would have made a nice break for everyone from droning on incessantly about tariffs. Football has a habit of breaking the ice.

But Korn's idea is fanciful at best, preposterous at worst. I say that as someone, too, who wants to see another World Cup in Asia.

But my memories of the 2007 AFC Asian Cup weren't all good ones, with the sort of inadequate ticketing, policing, transportation and infrastructure a World Cup requires of a host country or countries.

The decision to have matches shared by Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia was an unmitigated disaster, with poor crowds in Thailand and Malaysia especially. I came to Bangkok for Australia's group games, fully intending to go to Vietnam and Indonesia, but found getting around the Thai capital frustrating enough and so ended up pretty much staying in my air-conditioned hotel room and watching a lot of the tournament on TV.

Even when I managed to turn up to a match, via a hair-raising combination of Skytrain, taxi or riverboat, I didn't know which stadium entrance to use and nor did any of the young people manning the ticketing booths or the police. There were no chaperones on hand, like there were at Germany 2006, to point fans in the right direction. Like many fans who had bothered to make the trip to Thailand, I spent most of my time during the Asian Cup laundering sweat-soaked shirts and cursing the tournament as a monumental cock-up.

That was only two years ago. Yes, the Thai Premier League is coming along in leaps and bounds and the crowds are flooding stadiums to watch football again but how much has really changed?

Very little. You can bet, too, the same applies to Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and any of the remaining members of ASEAN (Philippines, Burma, Singapore, Brunei, Laos and Cambodia). Of those, only Singapore strikes me as a ready-made host for World Cup matches, with the kind of extant infrastructure FIFA would require.

But it is not a lost cause. There is plenty of time to put in place the necessary foundations for hosting a World Cup.

If ASEAN really wants a World Cup, however, the biggest obstacle is not going to be money or the weather but politics. Obviously a World Cup cannot be spread among ten countries, and FIFA president Sepp Blatter has already indicated his preference that only stand-alone countries make bids. (Which, of course, could change any minute. Blatter has a habit of changing his mind and, in any case, he'll be long gone by the time ASEAN gets a World Cup).

The only viable course in my view, then, is for a single nation to bid or, at the most, a two-nation bid to be made. In my opinion, the only legitimate contenders are Thailand and Indonesia and I don't see them as joint bidders. Indonesia has already made a quixotic bid for the 2022 World Cup but, as I wrote some weeks back for one of my columns in Australia, I see Australia not Thailand as a possible partner in a new bid.

So it would have to be Thailand going it alone.

The Buddhist country already has a lot of things going for it - its people, shopping, culture, food, beaches - that makes it an attractive candidate for an event of such immense scale but there's a very long way to go till the football infrastructure is anywhere near satisfactory: the Rajamangala Stadium, the biggest in the country, needs to be torn down and built again. There are no other stadiums in Thailand with capacities of over 40,000. FIFA requires at least 12 of 40,000 or more and one of 80,000 or more.

Obviously a bit of a pickle. And that's just for starters.

But kudos to Korn for at least floating the idea. South-East Asia deserves a World Cup and one day it will come here. Words, however, don't win World Cups. Politics, money and hard work do.

If ASEAN is serious, that hard work needs to start now.

In a media interview this week Indonesian Football Association general secretary Nugraha Besoes starkly outlined the massive work Australia still has to do, not just with its faltering World Cup bid but to convince its 45 fellow members of the Asian Football Confederation that it is actually part of Asia.

When asked by a journalist if Indonesia was "the best Asian candidate for 2022", he replied: "If Japan and South Korea drop out, then yes. Japan and Korea already had their chance. I don't think FIFA will give it to them. Then there is only Qatar. I don't think they will make it. So we are very strong in Asia."

No mention of Australia at all.

Yet Australia, as Frank Lowy told a business audience in Melbourne last week, is supposedly "the backyard or frontyard for Asia".

If that's the case, Australians are intruders on Asia's lawn and the owners of the house are armed and calling for reinforcements. If they don't start making the right noises soon, they're going to be blown back to Oceania.

With his rich man's gravitas and not inconsiderable means, Lowy was the man who engineered Australia's entry into Asia back in 2007, gifting his adopted country a whole new football diorama.

But Australia itself is still resistant to the notion of being an Asian nation and Australian football has been slow to embrace the opportunities afforded to it by virtue of being part of the AFC.

True, a couple of Thais now play for Melbourne. There's an Iraqi at Newcastle. There are a handful of Koreans getting about. But they are just six or so out of over 200 professionals calling themselves A-League players. Australia is part of Asia? You wouldn't know it watching an A-League match.

Australia put in a lazy effort for the 2011 Asian Cup, drawing with Indonesia 0-0 and losing to Kuwait 1-0 with domestic-based teams before realising its qualification was in jeopardy and bringing back the Socceroos' European contingent for its most recent qualifier, the 1-0 victory over Oman in Melbourne. Only 20,000 people bothered to show up and the game was most memorable for the spray Australia team manager gave to Oman coach Claude Le Roy at half time, when he accused the visitors of cheating.

Now, along with the 2015 Asian Cup and the 2018 or 2022 World Cups, the FFA wants to bring next year's 2010 Asian Champions League final down under.

Ambitious and admirable, maybe, and heading in the right direction but preposterous when you consider that the final will most likely not feature an Australian side. How many Australians, a people who can be xenophobic about Asians at worst, wary about them at best, would be galvanised to pay to turn up to see, for example, Al-Ittihad play Pohang Steelers?

The FFA would have to give tickets away.

As an Aussie might say, "Fair suck of the sav." It ain't going to happen. At least not for the next ten years.

In the meantime Australia can work on what it has hitherto conspicuously failed to do: convince those 45 other members of the AFC that it is Asian.

But that will only happen when it's managed to convince itself. 

It's a shame there is apparently water-cooler talk of drafting Leandson Dias da Silva, or "Rico" as he is known in the convention of Brazilian footballing nomenclature, into the Bahrain national team for the final playoff between the AFC and OFC for a berth at the 2010 World Cup.

Rico, the leading goalscorer in the Bahraini league for Al-Muharraq, is an ex-teammate of Kaká at Sao Paulo, but unlike his illustrious peer, never made it to the Selecao, La Liga and all those uncountable millions, so plumped, like so many South American also-rans, for the next best thing: the lucre on offer in the Middle East. There he has scored at will over five seasons.

Yes, Bahrain, frustratingly, could not score at home when they met New Zealand in Manama on October 10. Jaycee John is out of sorts. Alaa Hubail is seriously injured and ruled out for the return leg in Wellington on November 14. But Bahrain got to this stage largely on the strength of their homegrown players and is a shining example to all nations in the Middle East that developing your own is ultimately a better strategy than naturalising however many planeloads of Africans or South Americans as you can.

Qatar take note.

Which is not to say Bahrain has completely disavowed naturalisation as a strategy to realising its World Cup dream expeditiously - you'll still find a handful of west and north Africans with Middle Eastern-sounding names suiting up in Wellington - but you would hope that it is slowly dawning on the powers-that-be that long term the strength of the nation's football ultimately has to come from within its own borders.

And Milan Macala's team has shown there is plenty of talent on this tiny island of 700,000 people and (incredibly) just 4000 registered footballers: Salman Issa, Ismail Latif, Mohammed Salmeen, Hussain Ali, and the Hubail brothers, Mohammed and Alaa. What they lack in stature they more than make up in skill, speed and bravery.

If Bahrain can make the World Cup, by rights it should be a Hollywood movie. If John Candy were still alive he'd be perfect for their silver-haired Czech bear of a coach, Macala.

No country as small has ever made it that far: the next smallest, Trinidad & Tobago, Bahrain's conquerors in the playoffs in 2005, is nearly ten times larger with almost twice the population. So while Bahrain itself hardly evokes images of romance in Western minds (duty-free shopping malls have their limitations) the story of its football team is one of the loveliest in memory.

That's why, against my better instincts as a proud Antipodean, I will be supporting Bahrain over New Zealand on November 14.

The World Cup, for all its crude commercialism and cynical money grabbing, is still a place where the unlikeliest football dreams can come true.

Bahrain, the unlikeliest football team, and one from this loose neighbourhood we call Asia, is on the cusp of making its very own happen.

Believe it or not, Australian football fans do care about the Asian Cup, even though it's taken far too long for the Australian players themselves and the Australian coach to cotton on to its importance.

We (I count myself as a fan of the game first, journalist second) were aghast at the Socceroos' poor preparation and woeful performance at the 2007 Asian Cup, which saw Asia's number #1-ranked team knocked out in the quarters in a penalty shootout by Japan.

That tournament was Australia's "coming out" in Asia after being admitted into the Asian Football Confederation and, truth be told, we were ungracious and poorly-behaved guests.

It was hoped the arrival of former South Korea boss Pim Verbeek would correct this attitude of entitlement and inculcate a culture of respect for our opponents in Asia, but disappointingly the Dutchman carried on with pretty much the same behaviour as his predecessor, Graham Arnold: for Australia's first two qualification matches for the 2011 Asian Cup in Qatar he selected squads exclusively made up of domestic-based A-League players, thinking they could do the job.

They could not.

On January 28, in Jakarta, a dreadful sponge-like pitch at the Gelora Bung Karno and a plucky Indonesia held Verbeek's C-side to a 0-0 draw.

Afterwards, Verbeek was moved to call his strikers, Melbourne Victory duo Danny Allsopp and Archie Thompson, "hopeless".

On March 5, in Canberra, Kuwait deservedly defeated the "Diet Socceroos", as I like to call this peculiar and wholly unsatisfactory incarnation of the national football team, 1-0.

That match in Australia's capital city was a low point of Verbeek's short reign as manager, with players getting around with three numbers on their back, as good a sign as any of how the green-and-gold shirt was being devalued and the startling indifference with which Verbeek was treating the Asian Cup campaign.

The ladder doesn't lie.

Going into tomorrow's do-or-die showdown with Oman in Melbourne, the Socceroos are on one point from two matches in Group B, with a negative goal difference. Oman lead the group on four points, with Kuwait on three and Indonesia on two. After Wednesday's match there are three matches left to play: two away in the Middle East, and Indonesia at home. It's a must-win. And hardly a lay-down misery (Oman smashed Australia the last time they played, in Bangkok in 2007, only being saved from defeat, once more, by a late equaliser from Tim Cahill).

An unacceptable position for the so-called "best team in Asia", especially a nation in the midst of trying to bring the 2015 Asian Cup and 2018 or 2022 World Cups to its shores.

Which is why, belatedly, mercifully, Verbeek's tune is starting to change.

The side that will face Oman is the same that drew with the Netherlands in Sydney on Saturday: the "A" team, the one that will likely take the field for Australia's first match at South Africa 2010.

Some of the old arrogance is being shed, too, and Lucas Neill is starting to talk like he's being drilled by Football Federation Australia's PR department.

"We need to get ourselves out of this sticky situation and we want to go to the Asian Cup," he told the Australian media in Sydney last week. "We want to win every game we play in. We can't go to the World Cup and not go to the Asian Cup, which is in our own region, so we have to put that right. We have to dominate our region and the only way we can do that is to go to the Asian Cup and try to win it."

Nice effort, Lucas, but you would still be well advised to drop words like "dominate" from your captain's lexicon. Do Aussies ever learn?

So there's an awful lot riding on the result in Melbourne. It's heartening to see the coach and his players have finally woken up to their responsibilities.

The problem is they might have woken up too late.

Money can't buy you love and, as FC Bunyodkor has now found out, it can't buy you Asian Champions League titles either.

The ambitious Uzbeki club went for the jugular this year, splashing out a staggering US$18 million a season to secure ex-Chelsea, Portugal and Brazil manager Luiz Felipe Scolari on a two-year deal on top of the millions it had already forked out for Rivaldo.

However, it counted for nothing as they couldn't even subdue lowly Pohang Steelers in the quarter-finals last week, despite winning the first leg 3-1. The Koreans won  4-1 at home, putting them through to the semi final 5-4 on aggregate.

A terrible result for Tashkent's self-styled superclub and by rights Scolari should be out on his ear.

What use is a coach if he can't stop a side scoring four goals when his own is already two to the good? Especially one who is the highest paid not just in Asia but the world. Especially when Bunyodkor went into half time in the second leg in Korea at 0-0.

Leaking four goals in 45 minutes. Shameful. A coach on one-hundredth of Scolari's salary could have got Bunyodkor a better result.

But what does Scolari care? Even if he loses his job, which some are suggesting is imminent or inevitable, he's going to walk away a rich man, just like he did at Chelsea.

In the rarefied world of elite international coaches, where contracts get torn up as a matter of course and lawyers feast on fine print like vultures over carrion, failure can be just as lucrative as success.

Bunyodkor, however, should resist that temptation and make "Big Phil" work for his money. Letting him go is letting him off the hook. If Scolari is as good as he thinks he is, and undoubtedly he is no charlatan, he should be given another season to prove it.

Bunyodkor only has eyes for the Asian Champions League title and the FIFA Club World Cup and finding another coach now - which would make it nearly half a dozen in the space of just two years - would only delay those dreams being realised.

All coaches, whatever the sport, work best when they're actually given time to create a team. In football, unfortunately, the infiltration into the sport of crooked owners and dirty money has meant ego gratification takes precedence over stability, and nowhere more so than in Uzbekistan.

Bunyodkor, as is well known, is to all intents and purposes a vanity project for Gulnora Karimova, the photogenic daughter of dictator Islam Karimov and clearly the inspiration for the Sophie Marceau character in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough.

The Uzbeki people have suffered enough by seeing their country's fortunes siphoned away by gangsters and tyrants. If Bunyodkor is really for the Uzbeki people, as it purports, then it's time to start winning things for them. They deserve a whole lot more.

For that reason alone, Big Phil has to be made to stay.

Earlier in the year this column commended Melbourne Victory for signing Thai international Surat Sukha. Not only were they getting a very good player but they were taking a bold initiative among A-League clubs in recruiting in their own backyard, something the other then-eight teams in the competition had hitherto decided was simply "too hard".

Now, after only eight games of the new season, another Thai is joining Surat at the 2008/09 A-League champions. It is a defining moment for the A-League and for South-East Asian football.

Sutee Suksomkit has been signed as a "guest player", a spot usually taken by high-profile aging European or South American players looking for a short-term payday - think Benito Carbone and Kazu Miura at Sydney, Romario at Adelaide. He will arrive in Australia on October 5 from Singapore's Tampines Rovers and his first game is likely to be on October 24 at home against Melbourne's arch-rivals, Adelaide. The contract is for three months at AUD$15,000 a month.

Sutee breaks the "guest player" mould in more ways than one.

First, he's still young at 31; second, he's still playing international football; third, he's relatively inexpensive; and lastly, like Surat, he is promoting Australian football and the Australian league in a part of the world that holds the key to its growth.

When I was in Bangkok in 2007 for the Asian Cup and seeing with my own eyes the passion and fervour Thais had for football, as well as the quality of some of the Elephants players in their match against the Socceroos at the Rajamangala, I couldn't help think a golden opportunity was being missed by the A-League in ignoring Thailand.

For a long time, the marketing bounty of South-East Asia has been effectively harvested by European clubs but not by Australian ones. No longer.

It's clear from the double recruitment of Surat and Sutee that Melbourne has firm plans to brand the club regionally as part of its ambition to become an Antipodean version of Barcelona. And it's something other A-League clubs would do well to replicate, especially since most of them are broke.

Recruiting players from South-East Asia is not only smart but economical. With Football Federation Australia propping up so many clubs - Brisbane Roar is the latest to find itself in some financial trouble - one can only hope some of Melbourne's bravery and foresight rubs off on other teams in the competition. The A-League cannot go on, especially when it is being plundered each week by West Asian clubs taking advantage of the Asian Football Confederation's "3+1" rule, being a slightly rundown retirement village for has-been European and South American footballers with inflated price tags.

Melbourne is not only setting the benchmark as an Australian club in the way it does its business, but it is also so as a South-East Asian one.

With Surat and Sutee now in the A-League mix, perhaps the AFC's motto, "The Future is Asia", isn't so hopeful after all.

There's been an inordinate amount of media attention of late paid to Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan's takeover of Manchester City and how seemingly inexhaustible financial investment from the Middle East is starting a new "gold rush" in the Premier League.

What gets little coverage, however, is how the same money is reshaping Asian football, shifting the ballast of power from the traditional crucibles of Japan, Korea and Australia to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Already this year from Japan we've seen Gamba Osaka's Brazilian striker Leandro go to Qatar's Al-Sadd, following the well-worn path of Bare and Davi to the Middle East.

Koreans Lee Chun-soo and Lee Young-pyo made a double switch from the K-League to the Saudi Professional League. And just last night Socceroo Michael Beauchamp, out of favour at Aalborg in Denmark, signed on with Al Jazira in Abu Dhabi, bringing to three the number of big-name Aussies who have chosen to play in the Middle East this season, after Melbourne Victory striker Danny Allsopp defected to Qatar's Al Rayyan and Gold Coast United defender Adam Griffiths jumped ship to Saudi Arabia's Al Shabab.

Australia stars Mark Bresciano and Lucas Neill were also recently linked to moves to the Gulf and the A-League's top scorer, New Zealander Shane Smeltz, is being talked up as the likely first AUD$2 million transfer from Australia to the region.

The attraction for the players is obvious. Minimal or non-existent tax exposure. High wages. Luxury-resort living. An easier level of football.

The attraction for the clubs is also pretty transparent. Top players with a cheaper price tag than they can be possibly be bought for in Europe. Reinforcements for those prestigious Asian Champions League finals.

When oil flows like water, money is a trifle. Success is the true elixir for the Arab moneymen, and in the ACL a Gulf club has not won the title since Saudi Arabia's Al Ittihad won back to back in 2004 and 2005, so there is ample motivation to spend big and think later.

The big problem is the ACL runs the risk of becoming as predictable as the UEFA Champions League in the process. Titles will be able to be simply bought by those clubs with the biggest wells of cash and that likely means a club from Australia, where the football is arguably superior but a strict salary cap is in place, will never be able to keep up with its rivals from West Asia.

What all football lovers in Asia want to see, and what the Asian Football Confederation should want to nurture, is a league featuring the best teams in the region that is not only thrilling and of the highest quality but above all competitive.

Arab money has made the Premier League more exciting, that's for sure.

It might do the same for the ACL. But when winning becomes the preserve of those who can afford it, the soul of football is the big loser.

For a country that very few people could accurately locate on a map, with a population that doesn't even pass a million, Bahrain has more than punched above it weight in Asian Football Confederation qualifiers for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

In the final round there was the brilliant performance against Australia in Manama, where the Socceroos undeservedly snaffled a win in the last minutes, a narrow loss to Japan in Tokyo and wins against Uzbekistan and Qatar.

Then last week the Bahrainis went through to the AFC-OFC playoffs on the away goals rule at the expense of Saudi Arabia, a nation that has a valid sense of entitlement to World Cup final berths.

The "Sons of the Desert" will be missing out on their first World Cup since 1994. Bahrain, meanwhile, stands to go to its first World Cup ever if it can overcome New Zealand over two legs, at home on October 10 and away on November 14, which might sound a doddle given the All Whites' limp showing at the Confederations Cup. But it will be anything but. Shane Smeltz, the team's redoubtable striker, is in a rich vein of form in the Australian A-League with nine goals from six matches and he will be a hard man to stop.

Thankfully the Bahrainis, affectionately known as Al-Ahmar, the Reds, have a quality marksman of their own in Jaycee John, one of the most exciting talents in Asia, even if by way of Africa.

Nigeria-born, John stands 181cm tall, looks a little bit like Emmanuel Adebayor and has the technical ability of someone who should be playing in a much better league. At the moment, he gets around in Belgium's Jupiler Ligue for Excelsior Mouscron but that cannot last forever and won't last long at all if he can book his team a ticket to South Africa.

John was a handful for the Aussies and Japanese and scored a crucial sliding goalmouth leveller against the Saudis just before half-time in Riyadh. His goal celebration - complete with running backflips - was a testament to his strength and athleticism.

The only weakness in John's game is a propensity to go AWOL for long periods when he is not given licence to roam. The Australians completely suffocated his supply on the return leg in Sydney in June by marking him in pairs, even triptychs, and John couldn't so much manage a shot on goal all game.

The Kiwis will undoubtedly attempt to do the same thing in Manama in October but they will have to be also mindful of not paying him too much attention. Mahmoud Abdulrahman, Salman Issa and Ismail Abdullatif are also handy goal scorers in their own right.

History, though, has not been kind to Bahrain. In November 2005, they looked home and hosed for Germany 2006 after drawing 1-1 with lowly Trinidad & Tobago in Port of Spain but couldn't manage to score at home in the home leg and had a player, Hussain Ali Baba, sensationally sent off for protesting the disallowing of a goal to Ahmed Hassan in the 92nd minute after dispossessing T&T goalkeeper Kelvin Jack. What followed was much scuffling between players, a near riot in the stands and four years of collective agonising over a gilt-edged opportunity gone begging.

So New Zealand won't be the beneficiary of any underestimation. This might be Bahrain's time in the sun but they're not about to be burned again.

The way Australia was ambushed by Korea Republic on Saturday night in Seoul you would think the Socceroos were on the receiving end of some elaborate practical joke by FIFA and the Korean Football Association.

Anoint the team from Down Under #14 in the world, invite them over for a little kickaround and some kimchi, and while they're caught unawares, let the home side loose. Show those upstart Anglo swellheads how a real football team plays. And how the Taeguk Warriors brought the "best team in Asia" crashing back down to earth.

This is a team that is ranked #49 in the world, wedged between Tunisia and Colombia. Australia has not defeated Korea Republic since 1998. In 23 meetings since 1967 Australia has only defeated the South Koreans five times. Yet this is a team that is officially gazetted as 35 places poorer?

Korea Republic has gone a quarter century of games without a loss. In its final round of World Cup qualifying in Asia it wouldn't give an inch to the likes of North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran - all regional heavyweights - and the lamentable UAE. A real "Group of Death". Australia, meanwhile, also got through the last phase undefeated but only had to square off against one strong team: Japan. The Uzbekis, Qataris and Bahrainis were all hopeless, and it's a mark of how poor Australia was during periods of the campaign that it could only manage a scoreless draw against 83rd-ranked Qatar in Doha and escaped with a 1-0 win against 64th-ranked Bahrain in Manama, right at the death. There was also an Asian Cup qualifying loss to 110th-ranked Kuwait at home and a scoreless draw against 133rd-ranked Indonesia. The last two were not matches that featured a full-strength line-up, made up exclusively of A-League players, but they were representing Australia all the same.

Fourteen in the world? Pull the other one.

Korea Republic has not lost a match since going down to Chile 1-0 in January 2008 in Seoul. In the same period Australia has lost twice, to China and Kuwait, and played three fewer matches. The only thing in the Aussies' favour has been a willingness to play teams outside the AFC. Korea has only played Paraguay, winning 1-0. Australia has played Ghana, South Africa, Netherlands and Republic of Ireland - without loss and for three victories from four matches.

That is the only explanation for the anomaly in the FIFA rankings - and at least on that score Australia can be proud of its achievement. It has shown a willingness to take risks and pit itself against stronger teams while the Koreans have not.

But the serendipitous alchemy of bravery and mathematics does not in itself make Australia the best team in Asia.

In my opinion, that is quantified by skill, technique, tactical precision, quality of goals and ­- last of all - results.

On the evidence of what we witnessed in Seoul over the weekend, Korea Republic has the wood over the Aussies in every way.

Bob Houghton said before the Nehru Cup that he thought India, the 156th best team in the world, was better than the FIFA rankings suggested. Now that the Nehru Cup is over and India have won, he might just be right.

It was a stirring victory by the Bhangra Boys in the final at Ambedkar Stadium in Delhi, overcoming a determined 95th-ranked Syria 5-4 in a penalty shootout after the two sides were deadlocked 1-1 after 120 minutes. And most of the credit, as is usual in these situations, must go to the home side's keeper, Subrata Pal, who stopped three Syrian strikes in the faceoff.

Indian football has a new star - which is a positive development, because it is going to need a handful of them to replace the irrepressible Baichung Bhutia, who will likely call it quits after the 2011 Asian Cup. The man is a colossus of the Indian game, dwarfing everyone else. And as much as everyone would like him to, he can't go on forever.

Not all his good work takes place on the park though.

Recently he launched the website of the Football Players' Association of India, in his words, "for the welfare of the players... to come together, share our issues, let our issues be known and just grow the game". You can find it at www.fpaindia.com and it's a positive development in the promotion of Indian football, along with the excellent www.indianfootball.com which is run by a group of fans and journalists based in Germany.

So it's an indictment of Indian football bureaucracy that Bhutia's old club, Mohun Bagan, is locked in a vicious legal dispute with the player over his appearance last year on Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, the Indian version of the Dancing with the Stars.

He missed some training sessions and an exhibition match and was summarily suspended for six months.

Bhutia says his battle is "not with Mohun Bagan" but rather "one or two egotistic or publicity crazy officials who are handling the club". He says he would rather not play for 12 months than ever play for the Kolkata club again.

Whoever is at fault, and I don't know either way, it's not a good look for Indian football when it is making such great strides in on-field performance and off-field exposure.

Bhutia is nothing short of a living treasure of Indian football and while he may bear some responsibility in not meeting his commitments to Bagan that is surely a subordinate matter to the greater good of not bringing negative publicity to the sport and keeping its most important player happy ahead of the country's most important assignment in years, Qatar 2011.

After nearly two decades playing Indian league football and over 100 international caps, he deserves to be cut some slack.

Will he stay or will he go?

Worawi Makudi, the president of the Thai FA, insists Peter Reid is not about to quit as coach of Thailand to take up the assistant role at Stoke City in the Premiership. Reports emanating from London suggest otherwise.

Whatever transpires, the news of the past 48 hours has been a blow for Asian football. Not so much because Reid can't be replaced - he can and will - but rather as it underlines the challenges football in this region faces in talent retention.

For Asia to ever draw close to European standards in football it needs the best possible coaches working in this part of the world to make it happen and Reid, who may not have the urbane continental sangfroid of Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho, was still a cut above many of his Asian contemporaries.

Since arriving in Bangkok in September last year, he'd given Thai football a profile internationally, contributed in no small part to the commercial appeal of the new Thai Premier League and led the men's national team to some success: winning the T&T Cup in Vietnam and finishing second at the AFF Suzuki Cup. The campaign for qualification for the 2011 Asian Cup had just begun and Reid's ultimate objective was to make history and qualify the Elephants for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

It appears that is not going to happen, however, when the prospect of laying out the cones on the training paddock for Tony Pulis is regarded as a better job offer.

This, unfortunately, is the tough reality of Asian football.

The Potters might be a small-fry club but they are part of the biggest football competition in the world. A few poor results, a bit of pressure on Pulis, a kneejerk board and suddenly Reid could find himself back in charge of his fifth English club, his fourth in the Premiership. That is the big carrot and Thailand can't hope to keep him away from it, even with a four-year deal and all the other trappings of life in South-East Asia.

So where to now for the Thai FA?

Steve Darby, Reid's 2IC and erstwhile ESPN STAR Sports commentator, will likely stand in for however long is needed, and there are a couple of important games ahead, the home and away Asian Cup qualifiers against Singapore in November.

But should it turn to Europe again for a permanent replacement?

After all, Reid's predecessor, Charnwit Polcheewin, who coached Thailand for three years from 2005 to 2008, also had some success, winning the King's Cup two years in a row and, like Reid, taking home the T&T Cup. It's not like locals can't do the job.

There is, however, a bigger picture. And that is opening up Thai football to European ideas, European techniques, European application - of making Thai players give 100 per cent every moment of every game.

That has been the problem with Thai football in the past and it was something Reid and Darby were working to change.

Whoever comes in, be it Darby himself, another foreigner or a Thai, the hard work needs to continue. And let's just hope he's in for the long haul.

Football Federation Australia is usually way ahead of the pack in Asian football administration - at least outside of the Japanese, who continue to serve as the standard bearer in this region for all things football.

The A-League is marching on in leaps and bounds, the Socceroos are ranked #16 in the world (an unprecedented position) and of course there is the small business of bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Certainly it is a mark of the confidence it has in the FFA's professionalism that the Australian federal government tipped in $45.6 million of taxpayers' money for that arguably quixotic project without any guarantee of success.

So it beggars belief that an organisation which normally addresses issues and gets things done with a minimum of fuss is dragging its feet on deciding on what punishment to mete out against the Young Matildas, the Australian women's youth side, for its part in a disgraceful melee with China two weeks ago at the Asian Football Confederation Under-19 Women's Championship in Wuhan.

The AFC's Disciplinary Committee didn't waste any time determining that both parties had behaved poorly, issuing fines immediately. Yet importantly the Australians copped the blame, the AFC stating in its press release that the Young Matildas had been "found guilty of initiating" the fracas and "also of throwing bottles at the spectators. The team's head coach was also found guilty of misbehaviour during the post-match press conference."

The FFA nobly accepted the penalty and said it wouldn't be making any comment on the matter until such time as the incident had been reviewed and the perpetrators and witnesses interviewed and only then would it make its own decision on what was an appropriate sanction.

That was on August 6. Ten days on, nothing has happened.

Why the delay?

When I rang the FFA the media department in Sydney this Tuesday morning they didn’t know what was going on. I was informed that only Bonita Mersiades, the FFA’s head of corporate affairs, was permitted to comment on the matter.  I left a message on her mobile phone and, at time of writing, she has yet to get back to me. (Addendum: Mersiades later contacted me Tuesday evening and could only say that the "national teams unit" was undertaking its normal review of the Young Matildas' performance in China and had no statement to make regarding whether there was a breach of the FFA's code of conduct.)

The lack of resolve and transparency is perhaps understandable being that the FFA is caught is something of a catch-22. If it comes down hard on the Young Matildas, it will just compound the bad international publicity Australia got in the wake of the melee. But equally if it doesn't do anything and hopes the issue will just be forgotten, it is shirking its duty as a policeman of FIFA's much-vaunted principle of "fair play".

Either way, Australia is not going to come out of this looking squeaky clean - and that is presently the FFA's invidious position and great torment.

Just when it is trying to put its best face for FIFA's executive committee, a bunch of hotheaded sheilas have compromised the World Cup bid and caused no end of embarrassment to Australia's image in Asia and around the world.

The FFA, of course, didn't screw up. The girls and their coach did - and they warrant the sternest rebuke. But if the FFA's stalling goes on any longer, it is they that will emerge out of this sorry saga the most guilty party of all.

The Asian Football Confederation's "3+1" rule, which allows all competing clubs in the Asian Champions League to sign a player from within any of the AFC's 46 member nations above and beyond normal quota restrictions for foreign players, is one of the smartest things the AFC has ever implemented.

Already we've seen a significant amount of human traffic to and from football clubs, especially in Japan and South Korea - making the top Asian football leagues, and Asian football in general, stronger for their cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism.

Unfortunately, though, it's a rule that is beginning to reward the rich and punish the poor. And that's precisely what is happening in the transfer of Gold Coast United defender Adam Griffiths to Saudi Arabia's Al Shabab.

It's a funny world we live in when the likes of Gold Coast owner Clive Palmer, among the richest half-dozen men in Australia, can be described as poor but against the financial muscle of a cabal of sheikhs his fortune certainly looks small fry.

As we have seen in the English Premier League with Manchester City, money is no object for men of the desert and the outlay on Griffiths is probably less than Prince Khalid bin Sultan, the Riyadh club's benefactor and son of the Saudi Crown Prince, spends in a year keeping his moustache clipped.

But it's still a fortune in Australia and it instantly makes Griffiths, a middling talent at best, the highest-paid Australian footballer in Asia and multiplies his United salary sixfold.

Palmer might have more money than he'll ever need but billionaires never lose their nose for a good deal and so he is not going to stand in the player's way.

Griffiths, just one game played for Gold Coast after signing a three-year deal from Newcastle Jets last A-league season, gratefully accepted the invitation without a moment's hesitation. Hours after making his A-League debut for his new club, he'd decamped to Bahrain to nut out the fine details with Al Shabab before Tuesday's deadline for player registrations in the Asian Champions League quarter-finals.

That's how it easy it is to poach an Australian player from the A-League under the "3+1" dispensation. Wave some riyals, won or yen in their face and their bags are packed even before they say yes. And there will be more to follow.

Griffiths is just the latest in a growing number of Aussies to have left the country for the bounty on offer in Asia - his brothers Ryan and Joel among them - but is a pioneer of sorts in going to the Middle East.

All of which makes it hard to mount a case that Asian football has been made fairer by "3+1", the adverse effects of which are only compounded by salary-cap restrictions presently in place in smaller, poorer leagues such as Australia. Which means that even if Gold Coast wanted to spend all that new money in its bank account on an expensive overseas signing, it would be effectively prevented from doing so. It can only spend what the Australian football federation permits it to spend. In Saudi Arabia, no such restrictions apply.

So far from "3+1" fostering competition across Asia it could be argued it actually hinders it when the playing field is already far from level.

I'm still a fan of "3+1" - I think it's a great idea in principle - but it's starting to become a rich man's plaything.

And I'm not sure that's what the AFC intended it to be.

I've been banging on about the importance of Indonesia and Australia fostering greater ties in football for some time now, including the establishment of an annual Indonesia-Australia Cup, which to date has not seen the light of day. (Not everything that comes out of this formidable mouth is taken seriously by the suits at Football Federation Australia.)

Some years ago, in a wistful moment, I even advocated the entry of an Indonesian side into the Australian A-League and was laughed down by the parochial mob back home as having had too many Bintangs the night before.

So imagine my pride and vindication this week when an Australian friend, Gerard Clark, sent me a news item reporting that Indonesia Super League megaclub and current champion Persipura Jayapura was considering defecting to the A-League.

There has been trouble brewing in West Papua ever since Persipura made the decision to walk off the ground during the final of the Copa Indonesia against Sriwijaya FC on June 28.

Trailing 1-0, Persipura was incensed when a Sriwijaya player handballed in his own penalty area and the resulting pleas for a penalty fell on deaf ears from the referee, who got a headbutt from Persipura's Nigerian striker Ernest Jeremiah for his trouble.

The PSSI, the Indonesian FA, summarily banned the club from next year's Copa. Jeremiah and his non-playing Brazilian teammate Alberto Goncalves, who egged on the team to quit, were also banned from all football in the country for three years - three years! - and the club chairman, Manase Robert Kambu, who ordered the walkoff and happens to be the mayor of Jayapura, was sidelined for two. Jeremiah has since buggered off to China to play for Huangzhou Greentown.

In my view the PSSI was right to ban Persipura from the Copa Indonesia. A walkoff by any team in any situation that does not involve direct endangerment to their players (such as a riot, a fire, a terrace collapsing) should not be tolerated under any circumstances.

Headbutting a referee, meanwhile, is a disgrace. Jeremiah can't run from his shame. But the bans on Goncalves and Kambu appear disproportionate and that is partly why 100 Persipura fans picketed outside Papua Provincial Legislative Council in Jayapura this week.

There has been talk of the regional governor withdrawing tobacco sponsorship of football in the region and even of taking the club's case straight to the top - Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - unless the penalties are overturned. Then, breathtakingly, there is the threat to defect to Australia.

But it's all pie in the sky.

As my ESPN Star Sports colleague Antony Sutton wrote in his "Jakarta Casual" blog last weekend: "Of course the Aussies would welcome a team who get the sulks when things don't go their way with open arms. But they would draw the line at headbutting officials and walking off mid-game."

An Indonesian club might one day take its place in an expanded, regional A-League, and I think some point it is going to be inevitable, along with the inclusion of a Singaporean team, but it's not going to be an outfit like Persipura that takes such diabolical liberties with the definition of the word "professional".

West Papua might still be a wild frontier in all sorts of ways, but Persipura's behaviour has no place in football in Indonesia, Australia or anywhere it's played.

It's a lesson that needs to be learned - the hard way.

While Manchester United were shellacking Hangzhou Greentown and Liverpool were putting Singapore to the sword in two grossly mismatched encounters this week in Asia, a far more interesting assignment involving an Asian team was taking place in Catalonia, Spain: Spanish third-division club Unió Esportiva Castelldefels versus India at the Estadi La Bóbila de Gava.

India? In Spain?

It's rare enough to even hear of any Indian football match, let alone one taking place in Europe, but this is a football nation that is aggressively trying to shed the weight of its oppressive history on and off the park.

Oppressive because this country of 1.1 billion people, one of the fastest growing economies on earth, hasn't qualified for a World Cup since 1950. And it didn't even turn up for that event because at the time some of the national-team players preferred, believe it or not, playing without boots. FIFA wouldn't have it and so India withdrew from the tournament in Brazil.

IndianFootball.com, the premier Indian football site on the web, gives a good account of the Catalonia match, admitting India "were having difficulty" coping with the "polished Spanish football" from the "taller and stronger" Castelldefels players but they surprisingly opened the scoring in the 24th minute through a long-range strike from Surkumar Singh and only conceded in the second half through a penalty to the home side.

Not a bad effort for a team playing its first practice match of the year, even if the opposition wasn't the best team in Barcelona. Much more than the result, however, the game speaks volumes for India's ambition to get better at football, a sport that has a long and illustrious history on the subcontinent (as far back as the 1850s) but appears to have not seized the imagination of the public in the way cricket has.

The truth is, though, football is wildly popular in India. It's just that Indian football isn't. Starry-eyed kids and the upwardly mobile middle class, as elsewhere in Asia, favour watching and supporting teams such as Arsenal, Barcelona and Manchester United over the likes of Dempo, Mohun Bagan and Pune.

European football is not only of a high standard, it is aspirational. Indian football is neither - and it has the added misfortune of being compared to Indian cricket, which boasts arguably the most exciting players in the world who are paid sums of money even staggering by the standards of professional sportsmen in the West.

If you were a kid in Mumbai or Kolkata with some athletic talent and a desire to own a fast car and marry a Bollywood actress, what would you choose? It's a no-brainer. That is just part of the problem.

The other is an unwieldy football bureaucracy that you would expect of a nation made up of 35 states or territories covering over three million square kilometres. But that is slowly being dismantled and the All India Football Federation (AIFF) is currently in the process of overhaul, calling for new blood in the key positions of AIFF secretary-general and I-League (the Indian domestic competition) chief executive.

One of the secretary-general candidates, Goa Football Association secretary Savio Messias, says a World Cup is unrealistic.

"Let us accept the ground realities. We can't dream of playing in the World Cup. We have to go step by step, think of Asia first and then the world."

He may have a point.

Until it qualified for Qatar 2011, India hadn't qualified for an Asian Cup since 1984 and it does seem a logical place to start.

But, even still, a World Cup is not an impossible dream.

Qualifying for the biggest sporting event on earth might be decades away, but who thought India would be the power in cricket it is today when for two decades between 1932 and 1952 it couldn't win a Test against England? Now, 50 years on, India virtually runs the sport. 

If the 21st century is India's to own, which on all the evidence at hand it appears to be, football has to be part of that story.

It's time to write a new chapter.

Well nothing much happened in Kuala Lumpur overnight that we didn't expect - save for the fact that the Malaysian XI who trotted out against Manchester United for a second time in three days didn't retrieve the ball inside its own net more than twice and Michael Owen, the Red Devils' much-maligned signing from Newcastle in the EPL off-season, managed to score one of them. Two goals, though, from the Malaysians in the first game against a sluggish Man U gave the game some pep and faint hope, albeit deluded, to any Asian football romantic watching on.

The two sides were playing again because of the cancellation of United's Indonesian leg in the wake of the bombing of the Marriott Jakarta by terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiyah. As one of those aforementioned Asian football romantics, the scheduled July 20 game against an Indonesian Super League XI was one I was really looking forward to seeing, chiefly because I think the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium is one of those incredible arenas where the combination of the noise and colour from the crowd and the atrocious playing surface can level things between even the most mismatched opposition, and the Indonesian Super League XI was just that. It was also Man U's first trip to the old East Indies since 1975.

But it will never be.

There is talk already that the Indonesian 2022 World Cup bid is doomed because of the bombings.

That is balderdash. Spain and England are also bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and both have been victim of some wretched atrocities perpetrated by terrorists in recent years. Russia, another bidder, has been fighting a war against elements within its own realm (terrorists to some, freedom fighters to others) for over a decade.

How is Indonesia's situation any different?

It's all lies in perception. As someone who has travelled overland in Java a couple of times, I have never felt in grave danger for my safety at any time - except on public transport. Get around the east of the island on a bus at night and you'll know what I am talking about. It's heart-in-your-mouth stuff.

But for mine the locals were friendly, tolerant and open to engaging with foreigners - nothing like the image that now has some currency in the "West" of your average Indonesian being a red-eyed, foreigner-hating religious nutjob. There are some of them around, no doubt, but there are bad elements in any society - and England, Spain and Russia are no different.

Yes, Jemaah Islamiyah might want to use the World Cup for publicising their cause, but the same surely applies to ETA in Spain, Chechen militants in Russia and terrorist cells within England, as well as fellow World Cup bidders in the United States, Qatar, Japan and Australia, among others.

There is still 18 months before FIFA makes its decision on the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and a lot can happen in that time. Terrorism reaches every part of the world.

The bombing in Jakarta is not going to cruel Indonesia's World Cup bid. It never stood a chance anyway, even before the bombing at the Marriott.
But it can turn this tragedy into opportunity by renewing the fight against these criminals and bringing them to justice and doing it before the eyes of the world.

That would be a far better result than trying to win a game that's unwinnable.

It’s one of those ironies of Japanese culture that a country so steeped in not losing face, of (post 1945 at least) non-confrontation and avoiding drama, can produce a football chief in the mould of Motoaki Inukai. The Japanese Football Association president and former Urawa Reds boss this week called his own league “boring”, which is something his Australian counterparts would never countenance – and Aussies are known worldwide for their candour and lack of fear in calling “a spade a spade”.

In an interview with Nikkansports, Inukai complained that the J-League “doesn't have enough shots” and said shooting at goal “is not practised enough among children and they don't do enough of it in games”. He then trundled out some dubious statistic that the average Brazilian footballer takes 300,000 shots on goal before he becomes a professional, while a Japanese player will take 5000.

Which would explain J-League clubs’ enduring love affair with foreign strikers and the Japanese national team’s remarkable inability to score goals. All this, while Japanese midfielders can produce some of the prettiest passing football in the world then fall apart with a goalmouth beckoning. So Inukai has a valid point and he should be commended for making it. It’s refreshing to hear.

But I think it’s a harsh assessment.

As a viewer and follower of Asian football, Japanese teams have long set the standard for their regional competition, on and off the park, and that includes scoring goals. In the final of last year’s Asian Champions League, for example, Gamba Osaka crushed Adelaide United 5-0 over two legs. In this year’s group stages, two Japanese clubs, Kashima Antlers and Gamba Osaka, scored over 16 goals in just six matches. Gamba, who missed out on the ACL quarter-finals this September, also lost narrowly to eventual world champions Manchester United in the FIFA Club World Cup in a thrilling match that produced eight goals, three of quality from Gamba.

Last season in the J-League Kawasaki Frontale scored 65 times from 34 games with a goal differential of +23. The next highest scorer, champions Kashima Antlers, put the ball in the onion bag 56 times with a GD of +26. Compare to the A-League, with champions Melbourne Victory finishing the regular 21-game season with 39 goals with a GD of +12. Runners-up Adelaide finished with the same GD, but scored just 31 times. Even against the K-League, the J-League stacks up favourably, 2008 champions and top league scorers Suwon Samsung Bluewings scoring 46 times from 26 games with a GD of +22.

So Inukai should cut his clubs some slack.

The real issue, of course, is that the J-League is so far ahead of other Asian leagues that Inukai is really comparing his baby with Europe  – where EPL champions Man U finished their 38-game season with 68 goals with a GD of +44 and La Liga and Champions League winners Barcelona finished their domestic season breaking the ton in goals scored, an incredible 105, from 38 games and a GD of +70.

But that is an exercise in vanity and foolishness. Europe is another level entirely.

For what it is and what has achieved in its very short history, the J-League can be proud. One day it will compete with Europe but that day is not now.

Rather than get down on his own league, Inukai should be celebrating the beautiful football his countrymen can produce and which has given so much pleasure to fans around the world.

Because just like making love, football isn't all about the climax.

There was a cheeky editorial by Wanchai Rujawongsanti in the Bangkok Post last week titled "Thailand should join Oceania", which posed the question: "Australia switched to Asia so why can't Thailand go the other way round?"

Wanchai has a right old whinge, clearly annoyed by the qualification of Asian new boys Australia to the 2010 World Cup at a canter and riled by the fact his own country, Thailand, recently accounted 2-1 for a team that is still in with a shot at South Africa 2010, New Zealand.

The All Whites are due to play either Bahrain or Saudi Arabia in October in a two-leg playoff between the fifth-placed team in the Asian Football Confederation and the champions of Oceania. The AFC has 4.5 spots in World Cup qualifying, the OFC half a spot.

"The Thais comfortably defeated a second-string All Whites in a friendly in Bangkok recently," Wanchai wrote. "[We] should switch to Oceania as this might improve the chance of advancing to the finals.

"After being crowned Oceania champions, Thailand would face an Asian side in a play-off for a finals spot. This could be easier for the Kingdom than playing in long qualifying stages in Asia."

Easier is debatable.

Wanchai's thinking is the same thinking that bedevilled successive administrations of football in Australia and he would do well to pay heed to the lessons learned from that long period of stagnation when Australian football effectively kept its head in the sand.

It wasn't easy for Australia to qualify for the World Cup between 1974 and 2006 when it was a member of Oceania. In fact, that period is a great black mark on the nation's football record, its nadir in 1997 when the Socceroos let slip a two-goal lead in Melbourne to draw with Iran after a 1-1 scoresheet in the first leg in Tehran.

And in 1981, of course, Australia managed to lose to New Zealand, the All Whites going on to make their first and only World Cup appearance in Spain the following year.

So being a part of Oceania is not a red carpet to the World Cup as Wanchai seems to think. It means dropping down in the rankings, not having too many teams that want to play you, not having that many games to play - all of which goes on to affect the quality of the football being played.

That's why Australia desperately wanted to be a part of Asia. It didn't want its task made easier. It wanted to make it harder. And since joining the AFC, our football has benefited at club and international level, more games are being played, we're on the radar for hosting a World Cup and have qualified for a second World Cup in succession - the first time in our history. Australia is also at a historic high of #16 in the FIFA world rankings.

Asia has delivered everything it promised - and more. So what is Thailand's problem?

Having seen the Thais play first-hand myself, I believe they are a football nation with great promise. What they lack in physical stature they compensate with skill, speed and technique. When Australia met Thailand at the Asian Cup in 2007, they got a real fright.

They are positioned in one of the fastest-growing zones in the football world, South-East Asia. They are blessed with a population that is football mad.

But I'll be frank: they aren't prepared to put in the hard work. More players need to head overseas and test themselves outside of the Thai league without waiting for Thaksin Shinawatra to hand them a start in a club he's bought.

To my knowledge Teeratep Winothai and Surat Sukha are the only current internationals playing outside the Asian continent and a handful of players are picking up their wages in Vietnam.

This has to change.

Talent isn't lacking. Belief is. Both among the players themselves, the national federation, the Thai media and fans. Getting to a World Cup is not as easy as simply joining the OFC. That's a cop-out. It's going to take application, competition, effort and money - and if the Thais really want to get there they can't be in a better federation than the AFC.

The AFC's motto is "The Future is Asia" and it's completely right. Thai football needs to wake up and realise the gift it has been given - not sulk about what it doesn't have.

So Luiz Felipe Scolari, the legendary Brazilian coach who was most recently putting out the cones for Chelsea FC in a little park competition called the Barclays Premier League, has chosen Bunyodkor of Uzbekistan as his next coaching assignment. Bunyodkor? Uzbekistan?

If that wasn't enough to make you blow your corn flakes across the breakfast table, Andriy Shevchenko is wanting out of Europe, too, and has been linked with a shock move to the Qatari league's Al-Gharafa Sports Club, a place where outrageous wage demands are shrugged off as camel feed.

The U-League and the Q-League, or whatever the hell they're called (the names seem to change every year), haven't had too much success yet in the Asian version of the UEFA Champions League, the AFC Champions League, but at the pace all this oil money is being thrown around it's only a matter of time before they claim proprietorial rights over every bit of silverware going, just like Manchester United of England and Barcelona of Spain. Money doesn't always buy championships but it sure goes a long way in getting you near them.

As Japan and Australia have shown on the world stage and Gamba Osaka at the Club World Cup, the gulf between European and Asian football is narrowing and on a good day a top team in Asia can seriously give one of Europe's best a fright. In terms of professionalism, the gap is admittedly still wide, but in terms of performance it is not.

There are some wonderfully talented footballers in Asia and the only thing they've been lacking, unlike most of their European peers, is exposure to fans and decent exposure in the press. Thankfully, the arrival of big names such as Scolari and Shevchenko in Asia can only aid the cause of promoting football in the region.

But what is really needed, in my view, is a drastic rethink on continental club competitions.

Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam's long-term goal is to have Asia compete on an equal footing to Europe, so what faster way to accelerate that process by combining Asian and European club football with a new dispensation that would reward the best clubs in Asia with an opportunity to compete in Europe?

It would give all clubs in Asia an extra incentive to buy better-quality footballers and coaches, serve the purpose of bettering Asian football in general and, above all, expose European clubs, big and small, to that all-important marketing mother lode: the Asian continent.

How it could conceivably work is the hard part, but for example, the finalists of the previous year's Asian Champions League could automatically qualify for a pre-qualifying round of the Uefa Champions League, where they would be pitted in knockout home-and-away legs against some of the lesser clubs of Europe.

In effect, Asian clubs would be jokers in the pack: an entertaining novelty for fans and a lucrative commodity for TV rights holders. Given their quality, they would also stand a very good chance of progressing to the rounds featuring the European heavyweights, where things would really start to get interesting and the money would really start to flow.

It's pie-in-the-sky, of course, and how Asian teams could be accommodated in the present Uefa format without taking away the privileges of existing teams and national federations is a problem for which I don't propose to have any ready solution, but it's an idea worth throwing around.

We live in a small world and it's getting smaller. The dividing line between Asia and Europe is an imaginary one. Let's stop pretending it's intractable.

It's anything but.

If there's one thing the final at the Confederations Cup has proved conclusively - lest there were any doubts - it's that football is a game of two halves. USA went into the change-rooms at half-time in Johannesburg 2-0 up against the most storied, dangerous team in the world: Brazil. They were 45 minutes away from one of the great upsets of all time. A triumph for the ages.

Once they had got back on the field, however, it took less than a minute for one of those goals to be pegged back, a shade over 20 for the scores to be deadlocked and, with six minutes to go until extra time, it was all over, the unlikely figure of Lucio the saviour for a Selecao that had been pushed to the limit and proved it had stores of mental strength to match its virtually inexhaustible talent.

Football romantics, and I am one, were aghast. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing the Brazilian national football team put to the sword. It happens occasionally. What is rare, though, is to see anyone match the masters of joga bonito at their own game, and that is what USA did for that first 45 minutes, like Egypt against the same opposition earlier in the tournament.

Landon Donovan's goal, the Americans' second, was a masterpiece of counterattacking, one of the most beautifully executed pieces of football art I've seen in a long time. It's a shame it had to be overshadowed in the final analysis because it was a goal that deserved to deliver victory.

It was hard to believe the same Americans that danced across Ellis Park with such élan in the first half could be reduced to running at shadows in the second. But whatever Dunga had said to his players inside the dressing sheds must have been Pattonesque, judging by the wild reactions that accompanied each goal.

For the first time in a long time Brazil had needed to come from two goals down and do it in a final of a big tournament. That they scored three with such conviction and alacrity - none of them were lucky - is a tribute to their willpower. Clearly they needed to be shaken up a bit to find their mojo. This was more like the side that had crushed USA 3-0 in the group round, with Káka producing an imperious display after the break befitting a player with a GDP-like bank balance.

And so there is order in the house of football again. Even Spain, playing with the enthusiasm of a bunch of blokes who would prefer to be lying on beach towels, managed to survive another scare, this time in the third-place curtain-raiser against South Africa in Rustenburg.

Wedged between them in second place, though, is USA, and to get that far when no one gave them a hope in hell is an achievement worth praising. More than Egypt, USA has emerged from the Confederations Cup as a new world power in a sport whose name it can't even get right.

The ranking no longer looks like a typo. There is substance behind it.

For a guy whose head was on the chopping block after just two group games, Bob Bradley's position going into next year's World Cup now looks unassailable. USA can go a long way.

The only disadvantage his team will have when they return to South Africa is the surprise is gone. But great performers never look back.

USA has got its break on the world stage. Now it's up to them to take it the next level.

That it took a sublime piece of dead-ball magic from Barcelona defender Daniel Alves to separate the teams with just two minutes of regulation time left, is a tribute to Bafana Bafana and their under-fire coach Joel Santana.

For a team that is way down the pecking order of African football nations - it can't even qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations - South Africa have served notice that they won't be a pushover for anyone next year when the World Cup circus hits town.

I was scathing of Santana's team earlier in the tournament, especially for its insipid performance against Iraq, but they've had the last laugh. I am eating my words.

And I'm happy to. No one wants to see a host nation of a World Cup be embarrassed, and on the evidence of what we saw against Brazil South Africa won't be in 2010.

Siboniso Gaxa's thunderous strike across the face of goal from the right flank was an early sign that Bafana Bafana weren't going to be overawed, and they followed it up with probably their best chance a short period later. Aaron Mokoena skipped his marker by the left post, he got his head to the ball only for Julio Cesar to parry the effort over the crossbar. There were other good chances, notably another cross-goal ripper from Steven Pienaar, but Mokoena's was the best of them.

It was a composed, assured and intrepid showing from the South Africans, which actually reminded me a lot of when Australia played the Selecao in Munich in 2006. Again, it was a game that was won by the Brazilians, 2-0 in the final analysis, but the moral victory had been the Socceroos', who, in defeat, played their best game of the World Cup but showed a resolve to win complemented by an exhibition of technical football that I'm sure surprised even them.

That's one of the great things about Brazil: even when they're playing below their own lofty standards: they bring out the best in their opposition. Everyone wants to beat them. To beat Brazil, even if they aren't on top of the FIFA rankings at any given time, is to effectively become, for however briefly it lasts and however self-deceptive it might be, the best team in the world. Which is a tribute to Brazil's place in football. They remain, despite the claims of pretenders such as Spain, Holland and Argentina, the apotheosis of beauty in the beautiful game.

But to play below their best, while bringing out the best in others, beat them and still go on to win big tournaments - like they did at USA '94 and Korea-Japan 2002 and may well do again here in South Africa - is their greatest quality. For fleeting moments they give the world hope they can beaten. But when the gears kick in, when the drums start beating, when they find their Jobim rhythm, they cannot be stopped by anyone.

USA might be feeling on top of the world right now but come the final on June 28 put your money on them crashing back down to earth.

Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the President of the United States this morning? Has Paris Hilton won the Nobel Peace Prize? Is the world being invaded by vast armadas of spaceships carrying indestructible alien bugs?

Don't snicker. You'd better check, because the USA have beaten Spain 2-0 in the semi-final of the Confederations Cup, a game no one in their wildest dreams ever thought La Roja would lose.

Worse, it came just as the Spaniards were about to overhaul Brazil's longstanding world record for being undefeated.
You couldn't make it up.

The Americans, no match for Italy and Brazil in their first two matches, have now shocked form teams Egypt and Spain in succession and must have a good chance of upsetting Brazil in the final - if indeed the Selecao can overcome South Africa to get there.

What a confounding tournament this has been. It started so predictably, but now nothing can be taken for granted. If this is a sign of things to come at the World Cup next year, then football fans are in for four weeks of something truly special. A World Cup where no team is safe.

And, on this showing, the USA, so long the butt of jokes in football circles, should find themselves back in the top ten of the FIFA world rankings when they are released next month. It couldn't have come at a better time for the American World Cup bid. If Europe's movers and shakers thinks they have 2018 in the bag, they should think again.

So were Spain the victims of the disease otherwise known as complacency, something that has riddled this year's Confederations Cup?

It must have been a factor, but to make too much of it would be unfair. The USA's teenage striker Jozy Altidore turned his marker, Joan Capdevila, with ridiculous ease for the first goal and the second, scored by veteran midfielder Clint Dempsey, was a result of the Americans pressing and dispossessing Spain in their own half and making the European champions pay dearly for failing to clear the ball out of their own danger zone.

What was Sergio Ramos thinking? Why on earth did he just tap the ball with the inside of his right foot when it landed at his feet following a Landon Donovan cross? Dempsey didn't need an invitation to dip, swerve and fire around Ramos' legs.

This guy plays for Réal Madrid? After last night's match he should be cleaning toilets at McDonalds on Calle Gran Via.

All great teams are allowed an off day, and for Spain this clearly was one of them, their vaunted attack only managing a handful of retaliatory strikes on target in reply. But they also had an off day against Iraq, don't forget.

Two poor performances in four matches against some less-than-stellar opposition is worrying.

Spain thought they had consigned their infamous big-tournament yips to history by winning Euro 2008. On the evidence of their hitout in South Africa, that might not be the case at all. The yips are back.

As for the USA, they can hold their heads high. To be virtually down and out in the group stage, only to eventually make the final is an escape act worthy of Harry Houdini. Their only glaring problem is a propensity for collecting red cards, three in four games - three times more than all the other teams combined. They also lead the way with fouls conceded.

Afshin Ghotbi's Iran couldn't quite complete the fairytale but there was a welcome change in the passenger list on the Asian World Cup bus when the Democratic People's Republic of Korea qualified for South Africa 2010 on the back of a 0-0 draw with Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, the first time North Korea has qualified for a World Cup since its two-leg defeat of Australia in Cambodia in 1965.

The story of that encounter in Phnom Penh forms a whole chapter of a book I wrote back in 2007, the knockabout Australians (they weren't yet known as the Socceroos) being caught completely unawares by their well-drilled opposition, who smashed them nine goals to two. After shocking the Aussies, the same team went to England 1966 and "shocked the world", defeating Italy and giving Eusebio's Portugal the fright of its life in the quarter-finals.

So it's a 44-year break between drinks for the Chollima and it's greatto see them back on the biggest stage of all. FIFA president Sepp Blatter concurs, saying this week from the Confederations Cup: "I think to have the Democratic Republic of Korea at the World Cup is a confirmation that the development of football will not stop."

Perhaps, Sepp, but how much has North Korea developed itself as a football nation since 1966? In some respects it has gone backwards. The North Korean side of 1966 and the one of today might as well be from different planets. Where the 1966 side was celebrated for its attacking instincts, the team of 2009 is celebrated for its stinginess.

In its eight Group B games in the final round of Asian qualifying, it conceded only five, second only to South Korea (four) but scored just seven, bettering only bottom side UAE. It hasn't scored a goal since its home qualifier against UAE in March, when it won 2-0.

It doesn't augur well for a Chollima goalfest come June 2010, but, to be fair to the North Koreans, poverty of offence is becoming a characteristic of all four Asian teams to have directly qualified for the World Cup. South Korea scored 12 in eight games, Australia 12, Japan 11 and North Korea just over half a dozen. That's an average of less than two a game.

And poverty of offence, of course, didn't stop Greece winning Euro 2004 and Italy winning Germany 2006. But North Korea will go to South Africa 2010, too, under pressure not just to win games but also win the propaganda war. Tensions between the United States and the DPR are at an all-time high over the issue of nuclear-arms proliferation and there is every chance the football teams of the two states could meet at some point, even be grouped together.

The Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-il, has form on the board for using football to score propaganda points, so if the players of 1965 and 1966 thought they were under pressure not to lose - a bad result could mean being sent off to a prison camp - it's going to be nothing compared to the demands that'll be placed on their 2010 counterparts by Kim Jong-il and his Politburo.

Spare a thought for coach Kim Jong-hun and his team. They're already finding it hard enough to put the ball in the back of the net. So having to turn that record around at a World Cup and embarrass Barack Obama while they're doing it might just be an expectation too far.

Complacency. It's a word hard to escape at this Confederations Cup, with Egypt, the team I've been giving big raps to all week, being bundled out 3-0 by a hitherto underwhelming USA and Italy, the world champions, being sent home in disgrace by Brazil with a tournament record - three games, no wins, two losses - that should be casting some doubt on whether Marcello Lippi is the right man to lead his country to the World Cup next year in South Africa.

Then there was Iraq, which I flayed in yesterday's column, having a priceless opportunity against New Zealand to progress through to the semis at the expense of South Africa and, like their goals-for tally, coming to naught.

Complacency. Brazil had it against Egypt. Spain against Iraq. Italy against Egypt. Egypt against USA. Iraq against New Zealand.

By contrast, South Africa and USA, two of the least impressive teams, have benefited from their steadiness and a distinct lack of the spectacular to progress to the final four.

The other semi finalists, Spain and Brazil, of course, are so good they can afford the occasional stumble and have the necessary wherewithal to pull themselves out of a hole when required.

Egypt and Italy, brilliant in flashes, evidently cannot.

You've undoubtedly read the reports that some of the Pharaohs players were robbed by prostitutes back at their team hotel. The suggestion of hanky-panky would explain some of their sluggishness against USA. But were they also drugged en masse by some dodgy loukoum? How else to explain their collective brain explosion?

Egypt's coaching staff is complaining about tiredness and lack of preparation but that is a scoundrel's excuse. The fact is they thought the USA would be pushovers, chose a less than full-strength team and adopted a commensurately casual mindset when they should have been at their most alert. There are no free passes in big tournaments like this.

Instead of playing their normally open, free-passing, hard-running, out-from-the-back game and making offence their best defence, their response to going a goal down in shambolic circumstances to Charlie Davies was to camp in their own box, try not to concede anymore and counterattack with long-balls.

Always a dangerous strategy, even for the best teams in the world.

Playing to their strengths, which is to attack, Egypt could be one of them. So why they chose to play against their better instincts is a question I'm hoping coach Hassan Shehata will enlighten us and especially Egypt's supporters with in the days to come. We all deserve an explanation. The Confederations Cup has lost its fairytale team.

For their part Italy just didn't have their heads screwed on right from the very start. To be in a position where they had to win against Brazil in the final group game - what before the tournament should have seen as 90 minutes to experiment and rest key players for the semis - is an indictment of Lippi's preparations. The Selecao certainly weren't about to do them any favours, smashing them to smithereens all in the space of just eight minutes.

That vaunted blue defence, so long the calling card of the world champions, looks like a relic of history, the Azzurri scoring three in three games but conceding five.

Italy will rebuild, they cannot afford not to, but on the evidence of their performance at this Confederations Cup they run the very real risk of being the first defending champions to go out in a World Cup since France in 2002.

They might be flying home in ignominy and to a savage reception, but, like Egypt, they've also been gifted a precious warning.

Complacency has no place at this level.

Oh, Iraq. A team that could be so easy to love if it weren't so diabolically inconsistent. Asian champions one minute, World Cup roadkill the next. Frustrators of Spain, pushovers for New Zealand.

So much goodwill has been invested in this side, including my own, but, truth be told, they have not deserved it. Bora Milutinovic has again failed when so much was expected of him. Three games for two draws and one defeat.

But the statistic that matters is goals scored, and for Iraq it is an unflattering one: none.

Its disappointing record at the Confederations Cup is not an isolated one. Since their 2-1 World Cup qualifier defeat of China in Tianjin in June 2008, the Lions of Mesopotamia have not won a match. They have not scored twice in a match since December last year, a 2-2 draw against UAE in Al Ain.

If ever there was a time when they could turn both those records on their head, erase them as lingering embarrassments, it was against New Zealand, the whipping boys of the Confederations Cup, the great pretenders of Oceania who have been so out of their depth here in South Africa.

They hardly needed extra incentive, with the prospect of qualifying through to the semis at the expense of Bafana Bafana laid up on a plate.

Beating New Zealand? How hard could it be?

But save for some early predations at Ellis Park from Emad Mohammed and Younis Mahmoud and a late rally from Karrar Jasim, they were outplayed by the All Whites, who have reason to be proud of the way they have responded from being thumped by Spain and South Africa.

Coach Ricki Herbert was exultant after the game: "We've never come to an international tournament and gotten a point. This was another milestone for the country. I think we proved a few doubters wrong."

Perhaps they did. Perhaps, too, the all-black strips worked. There's a lot to be said for a change of paint. New Zealand certainly looked like a different team that had been thumped seven goals to zip in their previous two group matches.

Perhaps it's time to ditch the All Whites moniker and ape their more feared, more successful rugby counterparts. Perhaps even introduce a scaled-down haka?

From a position of looking like write-offs in their upcoming World Cup playoff against Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, the Shaky Isles might just have found a little of the self-belief hitherto they have been so conspicuously lacking.

Good luck to them.

As for Iraq, the question needs to be asked: Was their Asian Cup victory a fluke?

I was at the Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok in 2007 when they defeated Australia and saw a team that looked and played like a real Asian power.

Now they can't even get past New Zealand.

Granted, they've had to endure more problems and overcome more obstacles than any team should rightfully bear but too many times that has been used to explain away substandard performances like we have seen at this Confederations Cup.

No more.

It's going to be a long time before we see them back on the world stage.

Confederations Cup Day 6 Gallery

ESPN STAR, do I get a cigar?

Sorry while I attempt to slap myself on the back but I did say just a couple of days ago that this Egypt team was something special and threatened to upset the divine progression of either Italy or Brazil in Group B of the Confederations Cup. And so it has come to pass, the Pharoahs making good on their incredible display against Brazil in their opening match by defeating world champions Italy in their second. What a day for the Confederations Cup. What a day for world football. What a day for Africa.

Not such a great day for the Azzurri, of course, whose much-vaunted defence might as well have been asleep when Mohamed Homos headed past Gianluigi Buffon in the 40th minute, such was their resistance to the corner from Mohamed Aboutreika. What were they doing exactly? Playing cards? Picking nits out of each other's hair? I have no idea. But how Homos could get to the ball, unmarked, with four defenders standing around him is a subject worthy of an inquest by the Italian parliament.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall in the Italian dressing-room at half-time. Marcello Lippi must have, as the Australian saying goes, torn them all new a**holes, because they came out after the break like bats out of hell, desperate to atone for their failure. But Vincenzo Iaquinta and Riccardo Montolivo just couldn't get any joy despite numerous clear chances and the impassable Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary wasn't about to give them a sniff anyway. This was Egyptian football's arrival on the world stage. The party wasn't going to be spoiled with an equaliser - and it wasn't. Despite the crossbar saving El-Hadary late in the game after what was clearly a mishit cross from Iaquinta, the fact of the matter was the Italians simply weren't good enough.

But that hasn't stopped them being predictably ungracious since. This from Gianluca Zambrotta: "We could have easily scored three of four times tonight, if only we had a little more luck on our side." And this from Simone Pepe: "The pitch... wasn't perfect. In fact yesterday we were unable to train because of its problems, and tonight proved that."

Oh dear. Luck. The pitch. How about just outhustled, outmuscled and ultimately outdone by a better team?

Now the Azzurri have the unenviable task of having to beat Brazil to make the semis and might just have half a chance with the Selecao likely to rest some of their key players after clinically dispatching a feeble USA 3-0 in the other match played overnight.

But if there is any justice in this world Egypt will prevail, hammer the USA in the process and take their place among the final four.

Apart from being the most exciting team to watch at the Confederations Cup they've given some real weight to the cause of African football as a whole and shown the world there is real depth of talent outside the usual bread basket of west Africa. If a case is to be made for increasing the Confederation of African Football's World Cup allotment of five places (not including the hosts, South Africa), it is right now.

Europe's 13 is starting to look a little generous.

Now that's more like it. Two days ago for ESPN STAR I wrote: "Don't be surprised to see one of the big two from Group A, Brazil or Italy, come unstuck, with African Nations Cup champions Egypt into the semi-finals.

"The Egyptians are desperate to get their World Cup qualification dreams back on track after a 3-1 defeat to Algeria a week ago in the final round of African WCQs. There is nothing more dangerous in football than a chastened team out to prove a point to themselves."

Well, Egypt proved more than a point to themselves; they proved it to the rest of the world. The only thing they didn't come away with after succumbing 4-3 at the death to a vastly undeserving Brazil in Bloemfontein was, ironically, a point. They deserved that at the very least.

Much is made by FIFA of South Africa 2010 being the vital cog in an "African renaissance". The reality is if the football part of this renaissance is going to last any length of time it will have to start in the north of the continent, not the south.

The massive gulf in class between Egypt, the African champions, and South Africa, who haven't even qualified for the African Nations Cup next year, is obvious.

The Pharoahs were utterly captivating to watch and for long periods of the game out-joga-bonitoed the masters of joga bonito. Crisp passing, great technique, wonderful invention in one-on-one situations, a massively improved defensive effort in the second half and that most important ingredient: passion.

Brazil, meanwhile, especially their defence, seemed lulled into complacency by their own astonishing self-regard. Egypt was happy to prey upon that weakness and time and time again filched the Selecao defenders playing out of their own half.

If Mohamed Zidan is not snapped up by an English Premier League or La Liga club after this tournament and lured away from relative anonymity at Borussia Dortmund then there is something very wrong with the world. The same goes for Al-Ahly's Mohamed Aboutreika.

If they dropped their first names, shaved their heads and put on a yellow shirt, you would think they'd learned their art on the streets of Rio or Sao Paulo, not Cairo or Alexandria. And they'd be attracting commensurate price tags.

Let's hope Egypt can carry this performance over into their next World Cup assignment against Rwanda because they would be an ornament to the 2010 tournament. On form, they are clearly a match for anybody, as Brazil found to their great horror. The rest of us, meanwhile, have found a new team to love.

So it was all a bit of a letdown to have Italy vs USA follow in Pretoria. The Italians prevailed 3-1, as the Azzurri always do even when they're half asleep, and got a nice leg up in having Ricardo Clark controversially sent off in the first half for chopping down Gennaro Gattuso, which meant an already onerous assignment for the Americans was made that much harder. But it was nowhere near the nailbiter of Bloemfontein.

Credit to USA - they gave it a good shot, even going ahead 1-0 with a penalty to Landon Donovan in the 41st minute - but as is the way with teams that are world champions Italy never look a gift horse in the mouth and so exploited the width provided by the absence of Clark to give Bob Bradley's men a lesson in target practice: their first, a Giuseppe Rossi on-the-run left-foot 20-metre screamer in the 57th minute, was one for the highlights reels. Marvellous stuff.

But the day, if not the result, belonged to Egypt. For a tournament that seemed destined to offer up the same old faces in the semi-finals, Italy must now be sizing up their next match against the Pharaohs on Thursday in Johannesburg with some real alarm. The way Egypt is playing, a loss for the winners of Germany 2006 is a genuine possibility and then they have the prospect of facing Brazil.

Who said the Confederations Cup was a stroll in the park? It's going to be a cracker.

For long periods of the game between Spain and Iraq in Bloemfontein, while waiting for La Roja to put the ball in the back of the net, which seemed an eternity, I was preoccupied with the thought of how Sergio Ramos will feel when he's old and fat with all those weird tattoos of numbers and other talismans that adorn his body. You can get away with a bit of showboating when you're young, good-looking and talented, not so much when you're geriatric, infirm and need a Zimmer frame to get around.

But they're obviously working a charm for Ramos, because he's played over 50 internationals already and just all of 23.

And little wonder. His combination of flair, energy, creativity, speed, positional acumen and peerless skills, as with all his teammates, makes watching Spain a very satisfying exercise in patience: you know that sooner or later they're going to cut through and score. It might have taken 55 minutes, with an exasperated David Villa finally connecting his head to a sublime cross down the left byline from Joan Capdevila, but to a lover of the beautiful game, those 55 minutes were wonderfully instructive. Even with nine men behind the ball, with no thought to getting up the other end, could the Asian champions hold out this rampant Spanish team, which has now stretched its unbeaten run to 34, including 14 straight victories, just one match shy of the all-time record held by Brazil in the early 1990s.

The score might not have flattered the European champions but the bare truth is had Iraq opted to play a more expansive game it undoubtedly would have been a goalfest.

Spain is so good that the only viable strategy left to opposition coaches is to park the proverbial bus in front of goal and hold them at bay for as long as they can. To their immense credit, Iraq's players did a mighty good job of it for Bora Milutinovic but the ploy was always going to come unstuck once Spain scored.

The mark of a great team is one that manages to score even when it's having an off day, and for Spain this was most assuredly one of those.

But it's now into the semi-finals and I can't see them not winning this tournament, which, after a curiously insipid opening day, is finally starting to hit its straps.

Bernard Parker must have read my column from yesterday, calling for Joel Santana to swallow his pride and draft Benni McCarthy and Richard Henyekane to the national cause, because he rejoindered in the best way possible and put away a double against an All Whites rabble in Rustenburg.

Yes, it was New Zealand, so it might as well have been the Bad News Bears, but Bafana Bafana looked a different team with Steven Pienaar reinstated to midfield and will go into their next match, against Spain, with at least some conviction they're not going to be smashed to kingdom come.

Even if they lose, and Iraq thumps New Zealand (a most likely scenario) they can still scrape through to the next stage on goal difference.

Iraq showed the hosts Spain can be contained, so, with goal difference the key (South Africa has two goals, none against, while Iraq has no goals, with one against) there are no prizes for guessing what approach Joel Santana will be taking into the match on 20 June in Bloemfontein.

Bafana Bafana might be not quite the real deal yet, but if there's one thing South Africa has going for it, it's zealousness in defence.

Ramos and the rest of those Spanish pretty boys better buy extra pairs of shinguards. They're going to need them.

A break in transmission. A day's furlough. No matches to report on from overnight in the Confederations Cup in South Africa, and that's a blessed relief for this Australian, anyway, given the matches are televised at 12am and 4am AEST. A nice bottle of Marlborough pinot noir put me nicely to sleep before midnight and I awoke to the new day relatively refreshed and ready to once again staple my eyelids to my forehead and stay up for another night of international football.

Well, that is, if you can call South Africa vs New Zealand international standard. On the evidence so far, the hosts of South Africa 2010 are going to go out in the first round next year unless something drastic happens, most likely a new coach to replace the Brazilian Joel Santana. What's struck me most about Bafana Bafana so far is that they are overcompensating with their lack of incisiveness in attack with brutality in defence, and this is, naturally, a dangerous tactic with referees at big tournaments who are instructed to brook no nonsense. Against good teams, too, it's not going to get them too far.

For a nation that is already copping criticism from FIFA for half-filled stadia and wishes to put on its best face for the world when June 2010 rolls around, there is going to have to be a quantum shift in the make-up of the team. Benni McCarthy, stood down by Santana for supposedly faking an injury to excuse himself for internationals against Norway and Portugal and then fronting up for Blackburn Rover days later, has to come in from the cold. Bafana Bafana without McCarthy is like Sweden without Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Spain without Fernando Torres.

Santana was morally right to assert his authority in the matter of McCarthy's commitment (or lack of) to his country but this is not a team that can afford the luxury of leaving out its only genuine European-based star outside of midfielder and fellow English Premier League player Steven Pienaar.

Some compromise from both sides - player and coach - needs to be reached.

It cannot afford, either, to leave out Golden Arrows striker Richard Henyekane, the leading goalscorer in South Africa's domestic league, the Premier Soccer League. Last season Henyekane put away 19 goals for the Durban club, well ahead of fellow PSL strikers who were ultimately picked by Santana for his 23-man Confederations Cup squad: Katlego Mshego (9) and Katlego Mphela (3).

In response to his star player's exclusion from the national squad in early May, Arrows coach Manqoba Mngqithi called it "truly astonishing" and "nonsense". For his part, Santana refused to explain why. Perhaps he knew even then there was no real justification. There certainly doesn't seem to be any now with South Africa looking so singularly incapable of scoring in this tournament, that combined comedy-tragedy in the Iraq match from midfielder Kagiso Dikgacoi and Red Star Belgrade striker Bernard Parker aside. (Parker, for the record, scored all half a dozen goals last season for the Serbian club after moving from Durban's Thanda Royal Zulu and is now suing them for unpaid wages. Hardly a player at the top of his game.) South Africa should beat a hapless New Zealand in Rustenburg and keep themselves in the hunt for a semi-finals spot, providing Santana, for the moment at least, some vindication. A loss or draw would be unforgivable. Whatever the result, though, there's no hiding the fact Bafana Bafana is the weakest World Cup host nation in memory and is playing accordingly.

That can change. There is still time to fix the team's myriad problems. But when a case can be made that the biggest problem of all is the coach, how much hope can there really be?

It might not have registered as news in Asia, but on Sunday afternoon Australia officially launched its FIFA World Cup bid for 2018-2022 with a VIP lollapalooza at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was there, along with a swag of politicians, businessmen, journalists, ex-players and other assorted faces from the long-lunch set.

"Come Play" is the slogan and exhortation to FIFA's executive committee, whose votes count for the decision to anoint World Cup hosts, and it was backed up by an elaborate, expensive ad campaign that went to air on Australian TV the same night and is now all over YouTube and other video-sharing sites.

The next day Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy addressed the National Press Club, the first time in his illustrious business career, and presented his case for why the World Cup should come Down Under.

The curious thing about it, and what I want to talk about here, is that for a large part of his speech Lowy spoke about Asia and why it was important for the World Cup to return there for only the second time in the tournament's history.

Curious because although Australia is nominally a member of the Asian Football Confederation, it is not seen as "Asian" by much of the rest of the world, including some of its fellow member nations of the AFC.

Curious, too, because there are four other Asian countries - Japan, South Korea, Qatar and Indonesia - also bidding for either 2018 or 2022, or both.

"The weight of the world is with Asia," Lowy said. "The wealth of Asia continues to grow. It is where the customers are - for goods and services; and for football. In fact, the biggest television audience, by far, lies in Asia, not Europe and America. And in 2014... there will be more people flying in Asia than in Europe or America."

All impressive, all wonderfully convincing, but who is this data helping? Australia or its competitors in Asia?

Japan, South Korea and Indonesia all have bigger populations than Australia. Japan, Qatar, South Korea and even Indonesia have more favourable time zones than Australia for those all important TV schedules and the huge amounts of money that flow from them. South Korea, Japan and Indonesia have far bigger football audiences and far more established football leagues.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Japan has the second-highest GDP in the world, after the United States, and even tiny Qatar has a much higher GDP per capita than Australia, meaning Qataris have much more discretionary income to spend than Aussies. Being a transport hub between Asia and Europe, too, it is of course also far easier to get to for the bulk of fans who will planning to attend.

As I have stated in my column for SBS's The World Game in Australia this week, I believe playing up Australia's unique reputation as the only continent not to have hosted the World Cup is its true trump card. That and its fantastic weather, harbours, beaches, food, wine, nightlife, wilderness and other features that can offer international visitors the time of their lives. That's what so much of going to a World Cup is all about. The time you spend away from the football. For that reason alone, "Come Play" is well pitched.

But drawing attention to the economic clout of Asia? It's hardly doing the Australian bid any great benefit. In fact it might even be ultimately counterproductive and come back to haunt it.

So ditch the business suit, Frank, and, as Paul Hogan famously did in the 1980s, sit back, relax and put another proverbial shrimp on the barbie. The less that is made of the business case and more of the lifestyle one, the better the chances of Australia pulling off its World Cup miracle will be.

Well, if we all learned one thing from the first day of action of the FIFA Confederations Cup, it's that there is no moment to lose wrapping up the farce that is the Oceania Football Confederation. The OFC's representatives, New Zealand, were toyed with by Spain with the sinister intent of those killer whales you see throwing around seals in nature documentaries. It's all fun until someone decides to strike.

And strike Fernando Torres did. It was all over by the sixth minute.

If Torres can score in six minutes with such effortless sangfroid, as he did for his first, treating the All Whites defenders with the contempt they deserved, you just know there's going to be a bloodbath.

And that's precisely what La Roja served up like those orcas in a Vancouver sound: a lunch of blood. 5-0. Goodbye New Zealand. Let's hope they don't make it back to South Africa. They're out of their league.

Watching Iraq vs South Africa, meanwhile, was also no fun - an exercise in being tortured with vuvuzelas. I don't think my middle ear has been assailed with so much noise much since I walked out of a Sex Pistols concert at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion in 1996. It was ceaseless. Unremitting. I got a headache from just half an hour of it, let alone the full 90 minutes.

The headache was compounded by one of the most tedious, error-riddled games of football I've seen for some time. It was all very disappointing stuff from Iraq, whom I wrote about in my last column for ESPN STAR. For a team that is supposed to be so united, they spend an awful amount of time arguing amongst themselves. Nashat Akram, the star of the Lions of Mesopotamia, their floppy-maned il fantasista, had a particularly horrible match and won't have given his new club, FC Twente, much succour that they'd spent their money wisely. Let's hope he comes good for Iraq's next match, against Spain. They have the ability, the Iraqis, they're just not showing it. And they're going to need all their counterattacking wiles against La Roja.

As for the home side, on the evidence of their hitout against the Asian champions they're not going to progress through to the semi-finals with any great exposition of joga bonito, Brazilian coach or not. There's nothing fancy about the South Africans. They have a lethal rugby-like defence, marshalled by Matthew Booth, their sole white player who looks like the villain in the horror movie The Hills Have Eyes and has a bedside manner to match. Every time he flies in for a tackle you're expecting the stretchers to come out. If he can get through this tournament without killing anyone it will be a miracle.

To their credit Bafana Bafana appear adept at pushing the ball around quickly and clinically in midfield but when it rolls into the zone that matters, the final third, they are a rabble, typified by Kagisho Dikgacoi's header that was comically stopped from breaching the Iraqi net by his own team-mate, Bernard Parker.

Still, there is some consolation for the home side in that their next opponent is New Zealand. What an opportunity to sort out their scoring problems. Having just cleaned up the mess from their shirts, the All Whites are surely destined to get splattered with their own blood all over again.

It’s a mark of how big the FIFA World Cup is that it has its own dry-run tournament every four years, the Confederations Cup. Not even the Olympics has that.

I went to my first Confederations Cup in 2005 to watch Australia play Germany in Frankfurt, a game the home side ran away with 4-3. There was requisite colour on the field and in the stands at the space-age Waldstadion, and back in town all the heavy hitters of FIFA were doing their business behind closed doors in hotel conference rooms.

Make no mistake: this is a big football tournament on all sorts of levels, not least for the hosts, who have the opportunity to iron out sundry organisational kinks and get a gauge on how their own football team might really fare when South Africa 2010 kicks off.

Its rivals in this carnival of the boot, the so-called “Festival of Champions”, won’t be treating their time here lightly either.

Historians of the game will remember how the plan to get Guus Hiddink for the Socceroos was hatched at the last Confederations Cup when Frank Farina’s side crashed to Tunisia 2-0. Every coach, every player, is on notice. The only team not in the running for a World Cup spot is Iraq, but they’re playing for honour and so won’t be in South Africa to just make up the numbers.

In fact, a colleague of mine, the British football writer James Montague, the author of a splendid tome about football in the Middle East called When Friday Comes: Football in the War Zone, told me during the week that “Iraq is going to kick a**.”

You can read his report about the team, “How the Lions of Mesopotamia brought a sense of unity to Iraq”, on the Guardian website.

As James writes of the 2007 Asian Cup winners, “The Confederations Cup campaign, now under the aegis of the Serbian coach Bora Milutinovic, may seem like an irrelevance to most fans. Just don't tell the Iraqis that.

This is their one chance to remind the world that this generation of talented players was no flash in the pan, a quaint sporting aberration dreamed up in a Hollywood script.”

So pity Bafana Bafana, as the South African team is affectionately known, for being lumped in Group A with them.

The organisers probably thought they were giving the home team a leg up in putting them in a group featuring New Zealand, Iraq and Spain – while Group B has a meatier complexion in Brazil, Egypt, Italy and USA – but this is the funny thing about Confederations Cups: they always spring plenty of surprises.

Of the heavyweights, Spain will progress in a canter from Group A but don’t be surprised to see one of the big two from Group A, Brazil or Italy, come unstuck, with African Nations Cup champions Egypt into the semi-finals. The Egyptians are desperate to get their World Cup qualification dreams back on track after a 3-1 defeat to Algeria a week ago in the final round of African WCQs. There is nothing more dangerous in football than a chastened team out to prove a point to themselves.

A Spain–Brazil final is undoubtedly the pick of the local organising committee, FIFA, and just about every football fan around the world, myself included. I can’t see Spain or Brazil not getting there with players of the calibre of Puyol, Kaká, Torres and Pato among their ranks.

But no one gave Iraq a chance at the Asian Cup, either, and look what happened there.

There are still fairytales in football. The question is can they come around twice? At the Confederations Cup, they just might.

The usual suspects, the two leading football nations in Asia, Japan and Australia, qualified from Group A in Asian Football Confederation qualifying this week for South Africa 2010. There was little fuss made about either's achievement and reasonably so: given the amount of money at their disposal and the talent within their ranks they should be expected to be there.

In Group B, the third-best nation in the 46-member AFC, South Korea or "Korea Republic" also qualified, making it to the World Cup finals for the seventh consecutive time. The second automatic qualifying spot in that group, however, is still up for grabs - with Saudi Arabia, another World Cup regular, the favourite, and North Korea (the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea") and Iran outside chances at best.

On Wednesday the Afshin Ghotbi-led Iran has a must-win assignment at home in Tehran against United Arab Emirates followed by another must-win trip away to Seoul on June 17. North Korea, with just one match left to play, has a similarly daunting must-win task on the same day, away to the Saudis in Riyadh. The Arabian side, meanwhile, is away to South Korea on June 10 and only has to collect four points from its remaining two matches.

Having just thumped China 4-1 away, the same side that defeated Iran 1-0 a couple of weeks ago, I am favouring the "Sons of the Desert" to clinch the fourth automatic qualifying spot. Which, if my hunch proves to be right, would mean the Grand Trunk Road that is Asian qualifying has once again brought us to the same lookout point: and it's a view that is so familiar to seasoned Asia watchers we might as well have not bothered making the trip at all.

The real interest, then, is and has been for some time the tussle for the playoff spot in each group - the third-placed team in Groups A and B meeting for the right to take on Oceania champion New Zealand over two legs.

In Group A, Bahrain, which plays Australia in Sydney on Wednesday night, is on seven points from six matches and is favourite to take the coveted playoff spot. Even a point from their remaining two matches should be enough. Qatar, which gave the Socceroos a fright in Doha on the weekend before finishing in a 0-0 stalemate, is on five points but have played one more match than the Bahrainis and have an unflattering goals against tally that will count against them if they and Bahrain finish on eight points each. They also have to play Japan away. Last-placed Uzbekistan, on four points from seven, are as good as gone.

In Group B, North Korea, on 11 points from seven matches, seems to be a shoo-in for the playoffs, with chief rival Saudi Arabia, currently in third place, only having to collect those four points to directly qualify, but Iran can overtake the Chollima with wins in Tehran and Seoul. UAE, anchoring the group with one point from seven, is playing for pride.

It really is too hard to call but I'm going to stick my head out and pick Iran to sneak through the back door. Their backs to the wall, Ghotbi's Team Melli knows what it has to do without the distraction of complex mathematics and there is nothing in football like a team riding on adrenalin. 

Whatever happens, whether it's Bahrain or Qatar or Iran or North Korea that take those two playoff spots, it'll be refreshing to see a new Asian face at the World Cup finals outside the "Big Four". A strong federation is one that produces new contenders with each World Cup qualifying cycle. Asia, as we have seen, a federation with pretensions to greatness, hasn't quite broken the habit of coughing up the same old gallery of nations.

And lastly, speaking with my Aussie cork hat on, so long as New Zealand gets beaten, I'll be happy with whoever gets through.

It's one of those ironies of football that Iraq, the only west Asian team to have any consistent measure on the Socceroos, is going to the Confederations Cup in South Africa in two weeks around about the same time Australia should have qualified for the World Cup, to be played there a year later.

As Asian champions, Iraq should have found a place at South Africa 2010. But their qualification path through Asia was beset with the sorts of difficulties being a national team of Iraq can only throw up: not being able to play at home, federation intrigue, FIFA interference, talk of a conspiracy by Iraqi Qatar-based players to deliberately lose matches so as to protect their domestic contracts, and a turnover of coaches that even Chelsea could not match (there have been five since Brazilian Jorvan Vieira led them to Asian Cup glory in 2007: Egil Olsen, Adnan Hamad, Vieira again, Radhi Shenaishil, and now the Ken Kesey of international football, Bora Milutinovic).

So, unsurprisingly, they succumbed ultimately to finishing in third place in Group 1 of the penultimate Asian qualifying round, behind Australia and Qatar, on just seven points from six matches. It's a wonder they even got through them at all. All this, however, is not a reflection of their quality. Anyone who saw Iraq run rings around Australia in Bangkok in 2007 or over two legs in Brisbane and Dubai in 2008, can vouch for that.

Admittedly their Gulf Cup effort in Oman in January this year was poor (finishing bottom of their group and failing to win a match) and their recent form in friendlies has been underwhelming to say the least (defeats to Qatar and South Korea, a draw against Saudi Arabia). But then had very little to play for. When they have something to play for - and so follows commensurate will, ambition, spirit and unity - they are a hard-running, silky, technically adept side that are as good as any team in Asia. We saw that at the Asian Cup. The way Iraq play football is sort of like the way Pakistan plays cricket.  They pack it in when they know they can't possibly win. When they feel they have a chance of victory, they are a match for anyone.

So Milutinovic knows, just as his counterpart Afshin Ghotbi does with Iran, that concentrating on the psychology of his charges is the key to his hopes of success at the Confederations Cup. Given the short time he has to prepare for his side's three group matches with European champions Spain, hosts South Africa and Oceania whipping boys New Zealand, he can hardly be faulted for trying to keep it simple.

But Shenaishil, the man who vacated his caretaker post for the peripatetic Serb-Mexican, takes a markedly different view. He walked out of an Iraq training session at the Aspire Academy for Sports Excellence in Qatar a fortnight ago, resigned his assistant position and immediately excoriated Milutinovic, who took the reins in April, as a man "not qualified to lead our national team", claimed he did "not even have a method in training" and said he "knows nothing about the players". "The training sessions were theatrical and there is no way that I would accept being a part of something so fundamentally wrong," he railed. "I couldn't remain quiet because that would be equivalent to betraying Iraq."

A good coach knows that most of his work is psychological and motivational, about instilling pride and spirit. It is a bit rich for the 39-year-old Shenaishil, a coaching neophyte who has never taken a country to a World Cup, to question the methods of a 64-year-old master of the football craft who has taken five. It would be like me calling William Shakespeare a hack.

Iraq's players, the Lions of Mesopotamia, the Lions of the Two Rivers, know how to play football. They know how to find the back of the net. It's instinctive. What they've forgotten, and what remains hitherto untapped in the Iraq national football team of 2008 and 2009, is their will to win.

Being as experienced as he is, Milutinovic knows playing with ambition, flair and, most importantly, joy is one of the quickest ways to find success. An unhappy team is no good to anyone. A happy team can do anything.

Some years ago, when I was writing my book about the Socceroos’ 2006 World Cup campaign in Germany, I couldn’t avoid the subject of diving and simulation in football. That’s because to many Australian minds the Socceroos fell victim to one of the greatest con jobs of the tournament; when in the dying seconds of regulation time in their Round of 16 clash in Kaiserslautern, Italy’s Fabio Grosso went down after being obstructed by Lucas Neill.

There was outrage and not an insignificant amount of anguish Down Under when Italy was granted the penalty and Francesco Totti put it away with clinical ease. But in my mind the Italians had deserved what came to them and they deserved to go on to win the tournament.

Firstly, the Socceroos gave Totti too much space in midfield seconds before the fateful sequence of play, allowing him to set up Grosso for his jinking run into the box with an exquisite long pass.

Secondly, Grosso used every ounce of his street smarts to fool the referee and make what was a fairly innocuous, if foolish, challenge by Neill look a hell of a lot worse than it was.

It was no coincidence then, that in the months and years after Germany 2006 the Socceroos themselves, the one-time innocents of international football, began adding the occasional dive to their repertoire of skills. They had learned a valuable lesson from the world champions.

Diving and simulation is a part of the game that is almost impossible to eradicate because, frankly, most footballers are awfully good at it. Also, the line between legitimate and illegitimate is frustratingly difficult to glean, even with the luxury of slow-motion replays.

Referees, of course, don’t have slow-mo instant playback devices buried in their top pockets, so they are forced to make decisions on the run and many times they get it horribly wrong.

It makes a tough and thankless job all the more tough and thankless.

So without the benefit of video refereeing, and FIFA’s troublesome decree that incidents dealt with by the referee on the field cannot be retrospectively punished, diving and its attendant scourge, simulation, is able to flourish. Both are a blight on the beautiful game, but they are here to stay until drastic reforms are implemented at the top in Zurich.

That said, the silence from the Asian Football Confederation this week in the wake of the disgraceful behaviour of Tianjin Teda players in their Asian Champions League group match against Central Coast Mariners is simply not acceptable. (If you haven’t seen footage of the May 19 dead rubber in Gosford, it’s easily found on the internet). No press release deploring the actions of the Chinese team. No public rebuke from any AFC official against Tianjin Teda for dragging the hard-won reputation of the ACL back to joke status.

In fact, if you go to the AFC website and read the match report, there is no mention whatsoever of any diving or simulation, despite the fact that the Mariners’ Scotland-born coach Lawrie McKinna and several Mariners players gave their Tianjin counterparts a verbal rocket after the match.

McKinna, for the record, said: “It’s just a farce, they make a mockery of [our game]… they were bumping into their own players and diving.

That’s Asian football for you. It’s just terrible.”

For his part Mariners midfielder Matthew Osman called the Tianjin divers “a disgrace” and “an embarrassment to football”.

No wonder the AFC have kept mum.

Now there is diving, as we see every week in Europe, and then there is vaudeville, as we saw with that clutch of Tianjin Teda buffoons. The match actually became so farcical that at one point, late in the match, two Chinese players were rolling on the turf in their own penalty box, writhing in supposed agony while stalling for time to protect their 1-0 lead.

Osman, who had enough, joined them, flopping to the ground like he’d been shot by a sniper to clearly make his and his teammates’ disgust known to the Syrian referee, Mohsen Basma.

Osman succeeded in making a good point, but until the AFC comes out and publicly excoriates the players involved and the clubs they play for that encourage such pathetic tactics, nothing is going to change and Asia will go on carrying the stigma of being a complicit host to some of the worst, if not the worst, unsporting behaviour in the world of football.

Speaking as Asian, and on behalf of all Asian football fans, it’s time for the AFC to show some leadership.

In July 2007, while my personal life was rupturing catastrophically in the wake of my ten-year marriage falling apart, I flew to Bangkok for the Asian Cup. I took along my dad, Fred, just because I needed some company and together we watched a lot of football, drank a lot of margaritas and wore out the soles in our sandals as we tried to cover as much of inner Bangkok on foot as we possibly could.

The highlight of those ten days was a stormy night at the Rajamangala Stadium, where the crunch Australia vs Thailand group qualifier was to be played. We got there by klong but arrived early, so to pass the time went to one of those nondescript concrete and glass shopping malls that are everywhere in the Thai capital and whiled away an hour in a food court.

While sitting there, poking half-heartedly at my plate of som tum, I got into a conversation with a Thai man from an adjoining table who was thrilled to find out I wrote about football.

Surachai Nira was trying to help his young teenage son Suphanut, or "Pepé", land a professional contract and, at great expense, had paid for his tuition at a number of football schools in Europe. Now he wanted his son to go to Australia.

What did I suggest?

I didn't know what to say, not so much because I didn't want to give Surachai and Pepé encouragement but more because I didn't think Australia was the right destination for an Asian kid with stars in his eyes.

There were no South-East Asian footballers in the A-League. No Indonesians. No Thais. No Malays. No Vietnamese. Just a handful of Chinese and Koreans who hadn't quite achieved what was expected of them.

To all intents and purposes Australia was still very much terra nullius for Asian footballers and the pervading view down under, albeit an erroneous one, was that players from Asia were too small, too frail, couldn't handle the physical stuff and would get smashed the moment they took the field.

All the same, I took Surachai's number and promised to pass it on to some people when I got back home - but didn't hold out much hope for him despite my own confidence in and admiration for the ability of Asian players. (For the record I did, and don't know what ever happened to Pepé. If he's reading this, please get in touch with me via Facebook.)

Later that night, at a sodden Rajamangala, I was happy, then, to see the Elephants run the Socceroos ragged before being overcome late in the piece, Australia winning the match in a barely deserved scoreline of 4-0.

While the team in red lacked what was required in front of goal, doing just about everything but score, the Thais gave 2006 World Cup second-round heroes a bloody good shake and served notice in the region about the potential of South-East Asian football.

In a column called "Bangkok Redemption" for the Australian cable network Fox Sports, I wrote at the time: "In players such as Teeratep Winothai, Pipat Thonkanya and Suree Sukha there is real quality... Football Federation Australia and the [then] eight A-League clubs should be looking to this part of the world in their big-picture plans for the future of Australian football. Getting ‘into Asia' is not just about playing Asian Cups; it's about ensuring the long-term prosperity of the game."

The message was listened to, but, as often the way in "she'll be right" Australia, not acted upon.

Until now.

Finally, two years on from that game at the Rajamangala, a Thai player has landed a professional contract in the A-League.

Surat, the 1.76m-tall twin brother of Suree, has signed a two-year deal with champions Melbourne Victory, facilitated by the new "3+1" rule in place for the Asian Champions League.

A Thai player in the A-League? "So what?" you say.

It's no insignificant achievement. Surat is overturning decades of deeply ingrained myopia, small-mindedness, xenophobia and ignorance in Australian football by coming to Melbourne.

Thanks to performances like the Elephants' in Bangkok in 2007 and a few nasty surprises sprung on Australian teams in three editions of the ACL, the mentality of Australian football officialdom is beginning to change. The FFA and the now-ten A-League clubs are starting to appreciate that smaller, more technical, more nimble Asian players have what it takes to compete against the height and brawn of homemade footballers.

At a junior level, too, the focus on physicality is being superseded by a new emphasis on skill and technique. An Australian under-13 side is about to head to Malaysia for the Asian Football Confederation Under-13 Boys Festival of Football tournament and they include some kids who in previous times would never have a got a look-in because of their physical attributes.

The reasoning according to FFA technical director Han Berger? "The players in the squad have been selected based on their technical ability and potential and not necessarily their physical development as that will happen in due course."

As for Surat Sukha, he hopes his move to Australia "will be the first step for other Thai players to follow".

I do, too. Sincerely.

Surat's is a minor story in the big world of football but it's a watershed one in our region.

Because of his trailblazing, the dreams of kids like young Pepé who I met in that food court in Bangkok in 2007 won't be cruelled by prejudice and closed minds and they will finally get the opportunities they deserve.

And that's the best result of all.

Is there a more confounding place on earth than the United Arab Emirates?

It likes to promote itself as a liberal-thinking 21^st-century destination, yet a member of the UAE ruling family gets involved in torture that can only be described as medieval. For years it has been embarking on a scale of development not seen since the rebuilding of western Europe in World War II yet the engineers who are employed to build buildings are defaulting on their mortgages because of layoffs due to the global economic crisis and fleeing the country rather than risk the prospect of jail.

Then there are the vast reserves of cash that allow things like the world's biggest shopping mall - all 12-million-square-feet of it - to be built on what used to be just a pile of sand and dirt in an unprepossessing desert. Yet those same reserves of cash don't extend to keeping one of its own football teams in the Asian Champions League, the premier football competition in Asia.

That is precisely what happened last week when Sharjah FC, which qualified for the tournament through a 3-0 win in a playoff against Dempo SC of Goa, officially withdrew from the ACL after deciding it was pointless to continue in the group rounds after losing its first four matches. Sharjah played in Group B alongside Persepolis of Iran, Al-Shabab of Saudi Arabia and Al-Gharafa of Qatar.

The three other UAE teams in the ACL haven't fared that well either. Al-Ahli has one point in Group A, Al-Jazira four points in Group C and Al-Shabab Al-Arabi six points in Group D. Only the latter is still in contention with one round of matches left to play in the pool stage. But credit to all three that they have at least stayed on in the competition and gone down fighting.

Sharjah, like scoundrels, have not. In so doing they have failed their fans, failed their players, failed their country and failed Asian football in general.

The reasoning, apparently, is Sharjah's predicament in the country's shiny new 12-team UFL Pro League, where, with three rounds left to play, they are in danger of relegation, just three points above the drop zone. Coach Abdul Wahab Abdul Qader believes it would have "further demoralised" his team to stay in the ACL while involved in a relegation dogfight.

The club itself released a statement explaining its "difficult" decision: "Continuing in the Champions League would have added to the players' fatigue and suffering... we have been... conscious of the need to lift the burden on the players, which would have resulted from the stress and pressure of these [two remaining ACL] games."

Romy Gai, the Italian chief executive of the UFL, is crestfallen at the decision.
"[The ACL] is the closest you can get to the Champions League in Europe," he said. "So [Sharjah's] decision is going to hurt the image of the tournament itself. It is very sad... they have under-evaluated the effects of their decision on the entire football movement here and in Asia."

The UAE Football Association's general secretary Yousef Mohd Abdullah wrote to the AFC in Kuala Lumpur to explain it had been put to him by Sharjah that it was in the club's interests to divert all its energies and efforts at home and abandon the ACL. The UAE FA's and UFL's own hands were tied in the matter because they had no by-laws in place to prevent a team making that unilateral decision to withdraw. That has since been ameliorated.

The AFC, for its part, is singularly not impressed at seeing the ACL, its pride and joy, reduced to an international laughing stock and is threatening severe sanctions against Sharjah, including big fines and automatic expulsion from the next season of the ACL.

In my opinion it should do that - but more.

The UAE's allotment of three places in the ACL needs to come under serious scrutiny. How the UAE can have three automatic and one playoff entry and produce no outstanding contenders while the A-League, Australia's professional competition, can produce a finalist last ACL season in Adelaide United yet still only have two places in 2009 is beyond me.

The maths just doesn't add up.

Yet don't expect too much to happen. AFC president Bin Hammam is fresh from having scraped through last week's AFC Congress in Kuala Lumpur, where he narrowly survived a concerted challenge for his place on FIFA's executive committee by Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa of Bahrain.

The Qatari, a civilian, is not about to rock any boats with any sheikhs on board. Having their confidence and ongoing support is crucial to his own political future. And there are plenty of sheikhs in the UAE who can make Bin Hammam's job very difficult.

A stand, however, has to be made for the sake of the reputation of Asian football and to ensure Sharjah's disgraceful abandoning act is not repeated.

Bin Hammam's one-word mantra ever since he became the AFC's heaviest hitter is "professionalism". Professionalism is not only about doing your job well - it's seeing your job through. In this case, Sharjah have done neither. They deserve what's coming to them.

Forget Mohamed bin Hammam being reelected to FIFA's executive committee. As far as missions go, you would be hard pressed to find one more impossible - and improbable - in Asian football at the moment than the one new Islamic Republic of Iran manager Afshin Ghotbi faces in the next six weeks.

The affable Iranian-American, who was only announced in the job on April 22 when the incumbent Mohammed Mayelikohan sensationally stepped down a short time after being appointed himself in place of the sacked Ali Daei, has three matches to turn around Iran's near-moribund World Cup qualifying campaign and so gain automatic qualification to South Africa 2010 - or the more likely consolation prize of a playoff place. (The third-place-getters in the two Asian Football Confederation pool groups in this final round of World Cup qualifying play off for the right to take on Oceania Football Confederation champions New Zealand.)

It's all the more extraordinary because only a fortnight ago the 45-year-old was at his own sort of personal crossroads, living in Dubai, fielding enquiries everywhere from Iraq to Sweden to Japan, and even contemplating taking time out from football altogether to write his autobiography. Returning to Tehran, where he led Persepolis to the Iranian league championship in 2007 before leaving his post midway through a second season for personal reasons, was a wistful pipedream. When I met Ghotbi in Sydney in March, it seemed Iran was firmly in his past. Not his future.

It's a shame the book didn't see the light of day, because it would have been a cracking read. But it's probably best it was held off. The most exciting chapters have yet to be written.

Like the plot in some bizarre B-movie, this unlikeliest of Californian beach boys (he left Tehran for the United States in 1978) has now been asked to wrangle one of the spitting vipers on the three-headed "Axis of Evil" to the biggest sporting event on earth.

When he arrived on April 24 at Imam Khomeini Airport in the middle of the Tehran night, he got a hero's welcome reminiscent of Beatlemania in the 1960s - without, of course, the screaming girls. (Unless those girls were wearing fake beards.)

He has a nation of 70 million people behind him. He can count the immensely powerful Iranian football media in his corner. He even has, for now at least, the full support of the notoriously meddlesome Iranian Football Federation and their overlords, the religious clerics who run the state.

And it's all credit to Ghotbi's perseverance and character - for someone who previously couldn't get a visa to visit his homeland because of his American passport and for someone who has been derided in some quarters for being a glorified computer geek, he's making all the right noises.

One of the first things he did on returning to Tehran was declare his willingness to be a "soldier for Iran". And on the news that Team Melli's opponents on June 6, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, had chosen to play on artificial turf, he was typically unperturbed.

"It does not matter where we play," he said. "We will have to beat them even if we were playing on the moon. We will be supported by 70 million Iranians."

All the right noises. All the right notes.

And that is what Iran need to hear right now more than anything. Technically this is a team that is not deficient in any respect. Iran possess some of the finest players in Asia. But the national team has been lacking inspiration, lacking continuity, lacking confidence, and there are few men capable of turning that around as quickly as Ghotbi, who worked with Guus Hiddink at Korea-Japan 2002 and was a crucial cog in the "Be the Reds!" express that took South Korea all the way to the semi-finals.

Ghotbi told an Iranian news network this week: "What we need right now is to transfer positive energy to both players and fans. It is more a matter of heart and willingness, and the next matches must therefore be won first outside and then inside the field."

So what then of the artificial turf his team will have to play on in Pyongyang?

If there is a place as alien and spooky as the North Korean capital on this fair planet, I don't know it. Ghotbi's Team Melli might as well be playing on the moon for the unfamiliarity and hostility of their surroundings. And artificial turf isn't going to make his do-or-die assignment any easier.

Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have both gone there this year and lost, not even able to score. The well-drilled North Koreans have arguably the stingiest defence in Asia, typically playing 5-4-1. But conversely Iran have the wood on DPR. When they faced off in their opening World Cup contest last year in Tehran, Iran accounted for the Chollima 2-1. They also beat North Korea 2-0 in Pyongyang in 2005.

Though Ghotbi has never been to North Korea, despite living on the Korean peninsula for near on a decade, he believes he has enough inside knowledge to make an immediate impact in his three-match campaign.

The South Korean national-team training ground at the National Football Centre in Paju, which Ghotbi is well acquainted with, is a stone's throw from the North Korean border.

Accordingly, Ghotbi has organised three training blocks, the last of those in China, and four friendly matches prior to the game at Kim Il-sung Stadium. Two of those friendlies will be played on surfaces similar to the one his team expects to play on in Pyongyang.

It's worth pointing out, however, this match is just as crucial to DPR. The North Koreans are still holding to their accusations they were poisoned by their South Korean hosts on April 17. The same day Iran meet South Korea in Seoul but crucially Team Melli have an extra game in hand against UAE at home on June 10.

As with North Korean teams of World Cup campaigns past, their preparations for the June 6 match have been conducted under a veil of secrecy. Much of what they're doing can only be guessed at.

Yet Ghotbi is undeterred and nonplussed. He knows what he has to do and what he can control and so his immediate priority is to instil team harmony.

Speaking to him this week, he told 'Asian Rules' much of his time had been taken up flying around Europe, meeting players and "instantly developing a relationship. Listening to their views about their experiences in the national team has been valuable."

His 41-man preliminary squad, announced on April 30, was also notable for the return of Persepolis midfielder Ali Karimi, a player who had been frozen out of national-team reckoning under Ali Daei. Another new face from Ghotbi's old club Persepolis is gifted and towering striker Mohsen Khalili, who has played only eight times for the national team and spent much of 2008 out injured.

Yes, Ghotbi's mission is a difficult and onerous one. But it is hardly thankless.

Like his mentor Hiddink at Chelsea, if he fails, he arrived too late. If he succeeds, he's a national hero.

Knowing the man personally, though, he won't be countenancing failure. Nor will those 70 million people behind him.