The man who brought both the Cricket and Rugby world cups to the cloudy shores of New Zealand has a much bigger prize in mind for dear old Aotearoa – the FIFA World Cup.
Though he admits that, at least at this extremely early stage, any prospective bid might wind up being something of a “pipe dream,” Martin Snedden is nonetheless resolute in his plans to push forward with a bid for New Zealand to host either the 2026 or 2030 FIFA World Cup tournaments, in the process bringing the globe’s biggest sporting event to the Oceania region for the very first time.
Snedden, a former Kiwi national cricketer with 25 tests for the Black Caps under his belt, has in recent times proven to be the nation’s pre-eminent sporting administrator, particularly with regards to large events. After serving as the CEO of New Zealand Cricket, Snedden left to head up the organising committee for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, which proved to be stupendously successful both within New Zealand and globally as well. Snedden also co-helmed the successful bid that brought the Cricket World Cup to both New Zealand and Australia this past February and March.
On the heels of those two wildly successful international tournaments, Snedden now suggests that the time is right, particularly for New Zealand, to go after the biggest fish of them all, telling The Guardian “I’m thrilled by the way in which New Zealand has proved its capability with those two events. We are now on a bit of a roll. We have come a long way in a short time. We have a lot of capable people over New Zealand and a lot of goodwill. If we wait too long and aren’t aspirational then that will dissipate.“
The prospect to bid is very much in its embryonic stages, with the idea floated past New Zealand Football, Sports New Zealand and Central Government. It is quite likely that, should a bid go-ahead, it would be a joint-bid with Australia in order to meet tournament pre-requisites for stadiums with adequate capacity. With that said, however, Football Federation Australia has not yet been approached with the idea, according to Snedden.
A joint-bid would likely see about 70% of the tournament taking place in Australia, with two or three of the eight initial groups being based in New Zealand, rotating through venues in the four key cities of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. Though not confirmed, the 100,000+ seating capacity of the Melbourne Cricket Ground would likely establish itself as FIFA’s preferred choice of venue for a potential final.
With Australia’s failure to secure the World Cup in its own right at the last round of voting – we sensationally lost out to Qatar of all places for the right to host the 2022 tournament – a joint-bid with New Zealand could well provide the little extra something to get the bid over the line, and would potentially go a long way towards solving some of the logistical issues that would arise with regards to clashes with established professional sports in Australia like the AFL and NRL, as any prospective World Cup would likely overlap with those sporting seasons.
However, the issue of entering a cross-confederational bid remains quite the hurdle to overcome; New Zealand participates in FIFA’s Oceania division, whilst Australia is in the Asian region.
And even if it winds up being an impossible task to achieve, Snedden at least seems hell bent on not dying wondering, which can only be a positive thing.
“This is a big idea and ultimately it might prove to be a pipe dream, but we have come so far and these are the types of things we should be prepared to be examining. Even if ultimately we choose that we can’t do it, these are the sorts of opportunities that we are good enough to be looking at and taking seriously.”
“What I’m trying to say to people is ‘give it a bit of time, don’t make up your mind until we have given it some proper consideration, because you might be surprised when you dig into it’.”
“The best place for me to start is New Zealand and just seed the conversation and encourage people to participate with an open mind and then see where it leads us.”
Kia waimarie, bro. Give ’em hell.
Photo: Hagen Hopkins via Getty Images.
