{"id":345034,"date":"2023-11-09T04:03:23","date_gmt":"2023-11-09T05:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=345034"},"modified":"2023-11-09T06:03:03","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T06:03:03","slug":"socceroos-coachs-cheeky-dig-at-fifa-over-saudi-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=345034","title":{"rendered":"Socceroos coach's cheeky dig at FIFA over Saudi call"},"content":{"rendered":"

Socceroos<\/a> coach Graham Arnold<\/a> has taken a sly dig at FIFA over its decision to hand the 2034 World Cup hosting rights to Saudi Arabia after Australia's withdrawal.<\/p>\n

\ufeffFootball Australia announced last month it would pull out of the running<\/a> to host the tournament, leaving Saudi Arabia as the lone candidate.<\/p>\n

Arnold expressed his disappointment at FIFA's decision, saying it likely came down to one thing: money.<\/p>\n

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"\ufeffI\ufeff don't know if I would've been around that long," he said when asked about 2034.<\/p>\n

"I think we showed how well we can host events here in Australia with the Women's World Cup, and FIFA would've been looking closely at that.<\/p>\n

\"Socceroos<\/p>\n

"We did a fantastic job of hosting and of course it would've been a fantastic occasion for the men's game as well if that occurred, but I think the Saudis might've had a bit more money."<\/p>\n

Arnold's comments came after Football Australia boss James Johnson \ufeffadmitted FIFA's request for countries to express an interest in hosting less than one month after it opened bidding for the 2034 World Cup "did catch us a little bit by surprise".<\/p>\n

Johnson\ufeff explained that Australia's decision to opt out of the running for the 2034 World Cup was due to its hopes of hosting the Women's Asian Cup in 2026.<\/p>\n

"We felt that if we put an EOI in for the 2034 men's World Cup, it may mean that we couldn't allocate the right time and resources to the 2026 Women's Asian Cup and the 2029 Club World Cup (bids), so we didn't go for it," Johnson said.<\/p>\n

\"Matildas<\/p>\n

"We felt that the Saudi bid was strong and when (they have) got the backing of our confederation, the numbers are stacked against us."<\/p>\n

Arnold spoke when announcing the \ufeffSocceroos' 23-player squad for the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Bangladesh and Palestine.<\/p>\n

The Socceroos have a relatively unchanged squad from the one that faced England and New Zealand last month, including two uncapped players in Kusini Yengi and Ashley Maynard-Brewer.<\/p>\n

SOCCEROOS SQUAD:<\/strong> Mat Ryan (C & GK), Keanu Baccus, Aziz Behich, Brandon Borrello, Jordy Bos, Martin Boyle, Cameron Burgess, Alessandro Circati, Mitchell Duke, Joe Gauci (GK), Craig Goodwin, Jackson Irvine, Massimo Luongo, Jamie Maclaren, Ashley Maynard-Brewer (GK), Connor Metcalfe, Lewis Miller, Aiden O'Neill, Kye Rowles, Sam Silvera, Harry Souttar, Ryan Strain, Kusini Yengi.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Socceroos coach Graham Arnold has taken a sly dig at FIFA over its decision to hand the 2034 World Cup hosting rights to Saudi Arabia […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":345036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=345034"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":345038,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345034\/revisions\/345038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/345036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=345034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=345034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=345034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}