Lowy, who made his farewell speech at the Socceroos' 10th anniversary gala dinner at ANZ Stadium last night, regaled the 700-strong crowd with the story- and it's even better from the man himself.
It has been long known that FFA dipped into its coffers to organise a charter flight back from Montevideo, to ensure the Socceroos' players were in tip-top shape for the second leg of the qualifier against Uruguay, in Sydney.
Guus Hiddink also outed then-Socceroos team manager Gary Moretti as the architect behind the Socceroos blocking of seats on commercial flights from Montevideo to Sydney, which forced the Uruguay into a long-winded, many-hour flight to the second leg.
But it was Lowy's recount of the charter flight arrangement which had the crowd in stitches.
"I had a call from (then FFA CEO) John O'Neill," Lowy said.
John said to me: `Frank, we have an opportunity to fly the team back to Australia, but it's going to cost us $350,000',"
"I said, `OK mate, go ahead'.
This, most people knew.
But it seems only those in the top brass knew what happened later on, when O'Neill rang Lowy back.
"He says `Frank, we could save some money. The Uruguayans are prepared to pay half if we bring them with us'," Lowy said.
"Guess what I told them...
"Let them swim!" Lowy said as the crowd roared with laughter and appreciation.
All with a cheeky two fingered salute and a familiar twinkle in his eye.
