Why Tim Cahill has cast an awkward shadow over Socceroos’ Qatar success

Doha: Oh, to have been a fly on the wall inside Camp Socceroo these past couple of weeks. Not to hear Graham Arnold’s rev-ups, which somehow convinced his players they could actually win the World Cup (although that would have been interesting), but to just quietly observe how Tim Cahill - Australia’s “head of delegation”- fitted into the picture.

Let’s get the pleasantries out of the way early: Cahill is the greatest Socceroo of all time, with an unparalleled record of scoring big goals in bigger moments. The numbers say it all: 108 caps, 50 goals, four World Cups (he scored at three), two famous wins over Japan and Serbia (he scored in both). Whenever the country needed him, he was always there.

These days, he lives in Qatar. His choice. But here, again, Australian football has to thank him.

Now 42, Cahill is the chief sports officer at the Aspire Academy, the glistening $1.3 billion facility where the Socceroos spent almost every second of their visit to Doha, and helped forge the togetherness and unity that was the backbone of their success. The reality is they wouldn’t have got in there without Cahill.

Other teams stayed in hotels and bussed to training grounds, while Graham Arnold and his players got to do everything in the same location: eat, sleep, train, repeat. The joint was decked out in green and gold, plastered with inspirational messaging on the walls that plugged into the themes he was building upon to motivate his players, and filled with creature comforts to make them feel at home - including a recreation room with foosball, ping pong and air hockey tables, and even their own barista.

It was also adjacent to the high-tech Aspetar sports medicine hospital, one of the most advanced of its kind in the world, where Australia took their increasingly important recovery sessions. It almost certainly handed the Socceroos an edge in high-performance, which you could see in their 2-1 defeat to Argentina - it was basically the same starting XI that Arnold had rolled out in every match, and having played only 76 hours earlier, they should have been gassed. But they weren’t, and took Lionel Messi’s men to the wire.

Graham Arnold and Tim Cahill chew the fat at the Aspire Academy in Doha.Credit: Getty

And that’s all without mentioning the on-field help Cahill provided, having joined training to help fill out the numbers in the first few days as players trickled in from around the world, and the one-on-one assistance he gave striker Mitchell Duke. Given Duke’s brilliant headed goal against Tunisia, and Cahill’s expertise in the aerial space, that’s another tick in his favour.

Like pretty much everything else in Qatar, the “Aspire Zone” has a questionable history, belying the glitz and glamour that meets the eye: founded in 2004, it has trained and nurtured thousands of young athletes, mostly footballers but also Olympians. Critics, however, say Qatar has used it as a soft power tool, and the Garcia Report of 2014, which looked into the corruption claims that have dogged this World Cup for over a decade, found that Aspire’s vast resources were used to “curry favour” with members of FIFA’s executive committee who had the voting power to decide where it would be hosted.

Cahill was all set to take Australian media on a guided tour of Aspire a few days before the Socceroos’ World Cup opener against France, to be followed by an all-in press conference, but pulled out at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict. Socceroos staffers assured he would be made available for interview; despite daily requests, he never was.

Which is a damn shame, because there’s an awful lot to put to him. For example, how did he feel about the Socceroos’ brave statement of protest against Qatar’s human rights record and legal stance against same-sex relationships - the three-minute video statement that has been lauded by other nations as by far the strongest stance taken by any of the 32 teams at the World Cup?

Tim Cahill celebrates Australia’s win over Denmark with Ajdin Hrustic.Credit: Getty

Cahill was asked this by SBS reporter Ben Lewis in a brief interview arranged by a sponsor, just before the tournament began, but a PR officer immediately shut down the question and Cahill walked away without providing an answer.

Eleven of the 16 players involved in the Socceroos’ video were named in Arnold’s 26-man squad, and they saw Cahill every day they were in Qatar. It’s a topic they truly care about so it must have been raised at some point, although it’s easy to understand why Cahill could have been avoiding the conversation: he is a paid-up ambassador of the Qatar’s Supreme Committee of Delivery & Legacy, the government arm tasked with organising the World Cup and named like some sort of villainous organisation seeking to assassinate James Bond.

When Cahill accepted this role two years ago, he copped heavy criticism back home, then claimed he was “happy to answer the hard questions” and pledged he would use his voice and influence to help create “big change” in the ultra-conservative Gulf state on matters like workers’ rights and sustainability. So where is he?

Later in the tournament, media were told that Cahill wanted the focus to be on the Socceroos, not on him. Then the Supreme Committee released a short video of him talking up their historic win over Denmark, which triggered another round of unsuccessful interview requests. So which is it?

Surely Football Australia could have easily prepared him for a rather obvious line of questioning, or warned him that even if he stuffed that up, he would still look much better than if he refused to engage at all, like in the SBS clip which has now surfaced - especially since FA were happy to appoint him as the team’s head of delegation in the first place, and leaned on his local contacts to jag accommodation at Aspire and navigate any issues the players’ protest video might have created on the ground.

Cahill is entitled to live his life his way, and Australians will always treasure his on-field contributions. But he must know his incredible legacy is being tarnished among some. Maybe he doesn’t care.

He should also note that the expectations of sporting stars are changing, and Australia now has new football heroes. Members of the current team have demonstrated they have a conscience, are happy to admit they’re not perfect, and talk through the areas where they fall short. They could teach him a thing or two.

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