Canberra - are we ready?

If Australia wins the World Cup bid I wonder if the Canberra football community, Capital Football lead this, are ready to take advantage.

Sure we'll see statements from Capital Football about how the World Cup will be great, (even I could write that) but will there be a press release to show how it will benefit our community, in terms of facilities for football, community football, attracting business to football.

Is their a vision, work being done to plan for a positive result tomorrow. And of course if we win will we see the landscape in Canberra change over the 11 year lead-in. And how does our Peak Body see this happening.

How will they take advantage of it? I fear they won't.

If we win we are handed a gift. But one which only Canberra Football given our past could fail to take advantage of.

Canberra will get a superb new football stadium if we win the bid - which will be great for League and Rugby as it stands at present.

But still no football team in the nation's capital - not even a threat.

Australia are the only bidder for the Asian Cup in 2015, we're guaranteed to get six games in Canberra irrespective of the World Cup Bid.

I hear nothing to suggest this city has a plan to take advantage of such a football event - other than promote six football games, see them come see them go, much like the Sydney Olympics.

AFL grabbed $30 million from the ACT government recently. The richest sport gained the richest funds. How does that work?

Seems to me given the lack of foresight and lobbying power of the biggest community in Canberra, lead by Capital Football - the only winners from a World Cup Bid in Canberra will be -

The Brumbies and Raiders!

Canberra United, A-League Youth team and A-League team (in the future) could all benefit from Capital Football lobbying.

Why settle for grants for grounds, our community deserves that anyway as does the AFL and Cricket grassroots communities.

But why can't we access some additional dollars for our showpiece/professional teams just like the other codes seem to get so easily?