Australia's bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup will supposedly take another step forward next week when a five-member delegation from FIFA visits the country to inspect candidate cities.
Football Federation Australia will try to ensure the country scrubs up in terms of infrastructure and facilities but there's one word no one will want to mention.
China.
Last week, Wei Di, head of the Chinese Football Association, threw World Cup bids from several nations into a spin by announcing China's desire to host the tournament in 2026.
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China is a member of the Asian Football Confederation along with Australia, Qatar, Japan, and South Korea who are each bidding for 2022.
The catch is that, according to FIFA regulations, no Confederation can host successive World Cups. That's bad news for China then, right?
No. That's very bad news for the 2022 bids.
“There have been many debates on whether China should host a World Cup, or when to host it,” Di said last week. “After the tournament succeeded in South Africa, I have to admit, China has no reason not to have a World Cup. And now is the time.”
“To be honest, I don't want Asian countries to win the bid for the 2022 World Cup as it would be impossible for Asia to host two World Cups in a row,” he added.
“South Korea and Japan have already held the World Cup. Qatar is too hot and the population is small, how could there be enough spectators? Australia is also an Asian country in terms of soccer. I hope the US will win the bid so we'll have a better chance.”
The pitch for the United States, which is bidding for both the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, now becomes very simple.
It would go something like this: “There's great benefit in a World Cup being hosted by China. For the country, for the development of international football, and far more significantly, international business and the economy.”
“Why keep China out of the loop until 2030 at the earliest or 2034?” the Americans could argue.
“Simply hand the 2018 tournament to a European bidder and send the 2022 World Cup to the USA which offers great guaranteed financial return to FIFA as well as a northern hemisphere summer just five hours flight from Europe.”
If Asia deserves a World Cup, as Australia has pitched to FIFA, then it can be argued very simply that it should be hosted in Asia's true economic dragon - China.
In fact, the above argument was put to me earlier this year by US bid officials in New York before China publicly declared its interest.
So, this latest twist provides a great test for FFA chairman Frank Lowy as he attempts to bring the greatest show on Earth Down Under.
His tax-payer funded team of enthusiastically-funded international advisers claim to be fabulously well-connected and know the ins-and-outs of FIFA's inner-sanctum, which will vote for the 2018 and 2022 hosts on December 2.
Let's hope they saw this - admittedly unsurprising - development coming and it doesn't prove to be too much of a Chinese burn on Australia's ambition.
