Football, diplomacy and Australia in the Asian century

David Rowe

Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

Abstract

On the eve of the final of the 2015 AFC (Asian Football Confederation) Asian Cup final between host nation Australia and South Korea, the host city’s major newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald , carried a story about a move among some of the west Asian (especially Gulf) nations to expel Australia from the Asian Football Confederation. 1 For those among the hosts who believed that securing the event had cemented the place of Australia in Asian football and in Asia in general, this would have been something of a shock. Although AFC president Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa (from the Gulf state of Bahrain) claimed that his reported comments to the Dubai-based Al Ittihad newspaper had been ‘manipulated’ and that ‘To read a story like this is really sad because there’s no truth in it’, there were clearly undercurrents of the opposition to Australia that preceded and followed its entry to the Confederation on 1 January 2006.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSport and Diplomacy: Games Within Games
EditorsJ. Simon Rofe
Place of PublicationU.K.
PublisherManchester University Press
Pages147-165
Number of pages19
ISBN (Electronic)9781526131065
ISBN (Print)9781526131058
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Keywords

  • Asian Football Confederation
  • soccer
  • diplomacy
  • Australia

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