Aus2018.com

Can Australia have any real hope of securing the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup Finals when the sport is treated with such utter contempt from stadium officials as it was last night at Melbourne's Telstra Dome?

Can Australia really win the bid if pitches can't be prepared to domestic standard let alone the standard required for the world's biggest sporting event?

The Hyundai A-League match between Melbourne Victory and Queensland Roar (Melbourne won 2:1) was played on a pitch that can be best described as substandard. The crowd of over 23,000 (along with a live TV audience) were bemused to see officials crawling around the pitch only hours before kickoff collecting shards of glass left behind from a New Years Eve dance party.

This is the third time this season that the ground has been sub-par. Previous matches have been played following an Andre Rieu concert and the stadium's new sponsor (Etihad) logo being burned into the surface.

Public opinion was made worse at the end of the match when stadium officials released a statement that the ground was in a fit state. Very hard to believe after the game was nearly called off due to player safety concerns!

One wonders if the stadium has lost all interest in the game with Victory's move to a new stadium on the horizon, or if this would happen for an AFL match.

Officials from other Football Associations bidding for the FIFA World Cup Finals must be sitting back with wry grins on their faces right about now.