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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-11-13 Daily Xml
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SOCCER STADIUMS

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:00): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Mineral Resources Development, representing the Premier, questions about FIFA approved stadia.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: Yesterday, Premier Rann talked to the media about his admiration for Adelaide United and his confidence that it would achieve victory in last night's Asian Champions League final.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: To be fair, I do not think we can blame him for that one. I was also confident and proud to be present as opposition sports spokesman to see the Reds fight it out until the very end. They have done our state extremely proud. Unfortunately, Gamba Osaka's gun Brazilian striker Lucas was far too slick and evasive (not unlike another Lucas I know!). However, one of the Premier's comments on radio yesterday alarmed me when he boldly stated:

I was asked by SBS yesterday in terms of the stadium issue...they said...what about if you miss out on two games for the World Cup...I said...I'll guarantee you this, I'll make this promise tonight that if we win the right to stage the World Cup we'll have a venue that's FIFA ready...

Members would be aware that Football Federation Australia CEO Ben Buckley already recently said that a Football Federation Australia audit had found that AAMI Stadium is very much not FIFA ready and is unsuitable for major Socceroos games and other major events where an audience of 50,000 to 60,000 could be expected. Adelaide Oval was not considered in the audit because it does not have enough seats. Mr Buckley stated:

Spectator experience is a key driver for attendance. Proximity to the play, particularly for those [matches] played on rectangular venues, is crucial and somewhere like AAMI does not provide that.

Adelaide United Chief Executive Sam Ciccarello also commented recently that both AAMI Stadium and Adelaide Oval do not work for soccer, from a configuration and pitch perspective. FIFA's own strict guidelines stipulate that seating must be much closer to the pitch than how AAMI is configured and that seating must be set up on a much deeper angle—more in a colosseum style, one might say—such as venues like Etihad Stadium in Melbourne's Docklands. This setup brings spectators closer to the play, and any new stadium being built around the world now follows these strict guidelines. My questions to the minister are:

1. How can the Premier make this claim, when it is clear that our current facilities are not up to FIFA standard and will never be up to FIFA's high standards?

2. Given these recent comments, is the Premier secretly considering building a new multipurpose stadium, now that he knows it is what the majority of South Australians want?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (15:02): I find it extraordinary that the honourable member should, in the last part of his question, talk about a multipurpose stadium, when it seemed to me that the whole construction of his question was (as has often been pointed out by many observers) that, in fact, different sports codes prefer different styles of stadiums. An Australian Rules stadium that has an elevated field to allow for drainage does not make a perfect soccer pitch: I understand that for soccer you need a perfectly flat pitch. Is that not the whole problem that one faces with multipurpose stadiums, for which the Leader of the Opposition has been the champion over such a long period?

One cannot get the codes to agree—whether it be cricket, Australian Rules football, soccer, or whatever—to use the one stadium. Of course, if you cannot do that, you do not get the economies of scale that are necessary to fund it. I would have thought that that is the whole dilemma behind what the Leader of the Opposition has been supporting.

As I understood his statement, the Premier said that, if Australia won the rights to host the World Cup, which would be in, I think, 2018 at the earliest, any future government here would make sure we had an adequate venue, whether it was modified or not. If members opposite, particularly in the current economic climate, want to champion a new multipurpose stadium—and we are talking about a multipurpose stadium—if that is what they want to put up as their top priority, I guess they will do so and the people of this state will make their judgment accordingly. If the opposition believes in a multi-purpose stadium that different codes do not want to use, then let it put it up. I am sure the public of South Australia will make its decision.

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