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Airdate: Played: Inside Australia’s Failed World Cup Bid

Leigh Sales speaks to key players at the top of our failed bid for a sporting triumph.

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Leigh Sales (and you thought it was Julia Gillard, right?) is hosting an ABC doco later this month, Played: Inside Australia’s Failed World Cup Bid.

Billionaire Frank Lowy had a dream: to bring the world to Australia for the greatest sporting event on the planet. Football’s World Cup would be Lowy’s crowning achievement in an extraordinarily successful career and his greatest coup. History told him he was the man to do it. Instead, he was conned. He was completely played by the masters of dark politics and backstabbing. Along the way, Australia lost $43 million.

Was it hubris or naivety from Frank Lowy. Or was one of the world’s smartest businessmen simply an unsuspecting player in the high-stakes power game beyond his control? It was certainly embarrassing for Australia.

Now, for the first time, the inside story of what really happened is exclusively revealed by those close to the action – including Frank Lowy; former Prime Minister John Howard; disgraced FIFA President Sepp Blatter; former FFA CEO John O’Neill; Steven Lowy; Lowy’s close adviser Mark Ryan; biographer Jill Margo; film director Phillip Noyce; and Australia’s bid consultants.

Narrated by Leigh Sales, this one-hour documentary reveals just how Australia came unstuck in the treacherous international game of sport diplomacy, politics, money and intrigue.

Candid never-before-seen private footage lays bare the last three painful days of Australia’s bid to host the 2022 football World Cup and reveals the heartbreaking moment when Frank discovers the truth.

Played: Inside Australia’s Failed World Cup Bid goes behind the scenes, into an exclusive world that is rarely captured and almost never seen – joining Frank Lowy and the Australian bid team as what should have been the biggest triumph of their lives became their greatest public failure.

Frank Lowy was left wondering what had hit him – vowing that the last word had not been heard. Now the truth of how Australia was played can finally be revealed.

“We failed miserably and it would have been probably one of my biggest failures in my career, and I take it very hard. I love the success. People tell me at FIFA that I’m a sore loser. But in this instance, I am a sore loser because I thought that we had the credentials to have it”. – Frank Lowy

Tuesday, November 17, at 8.30pm on ABC.

6 Responses

  1. I’m sick and tired of politicians and their sport obsessed cronies throwing vast amounts of public money at sugar hit events run by deeply corrupt organisations with no accountability-screw soccer, the Olympics, cycling et al. Instead-pay every citizen $10 dollars to take a walk down to the nearest park and stroll about for an hour-that would be of real benefit.

    1. My thoughts exactly. Who gives a toss about some corrupt sport and our apparently insatiable need to be noticed on the world stage (but always for ephemeral activities of no lasting significance) and in the process make lots of moolah for a bunch of boofheads, supported by craven politicians eager to provide distractions to the voters so they don’t notice how useless they are.

      Frank Lowy has achieved so much, and wasted so much on irrelevant nonsense like this World Cup bid.

  2. We didn’t have the credentials to have it. The World Cup will held in June/July when every football ground is contracted to the AFL and NRL who refused to release any grounds. So Lowy made a bid with no stadiums, in a timeslot useless for European TV broadcasting, and without the backing of any major soccer powers.

    By throwing $43m of other people’s money away Lowy hoped to elevate his position in global football win or lose. All he got was a reputation for incompetent bribery.

    Qatar were much better at bribery with an even more ridiculous bid, and the US would have got in a fair vote not us.

    1. I think the thing is, is that had the US won Australians would have been disappointed, but not shocked in the same way we were with Qatar. There’s a difference between losing in a fair fight and losing in a rigged one.

  3. Why does the Australian mentality believe that coming 2nd in a world tournament constitute a failure. Suck it up and admit NZ were better and congratulate the wallabies for doing as well as they did.

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