Indonesia discussing 2034 World Cup bid with Australia, says soccer chief

Singapore/Jakarta: Australia and Indonesia are weighing up a joint bid for the 2034 men’s World Cup that could also include Malaysia and Singapore as co-hosts.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is the favourite to stage the tournament, which has been set aside for soccer’s Asian and Oceania confederations, but as an October 31 deadline for expressions of interest approaches, an intercontinental challenger featuring Australia could emerge.

Australian and Argentinian supporters in Sydney’s Darling Harbour watch the knockout match between the Socceroos and Lionel Messi’s eventual winners in Qatar last year.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

Erick Thohir, the billionaire chairman of the Football Association of Indonesia, has revealed officials from south-east Asia’s largest country have been in talks with Australian counterparts about trying to bring the sport’s showpiece event to the region for the first time.

“We are discussing [a bid] with Australia,” said Thohir, who is also a senior government minister and is being touted as a possible vice-presidential candidate in next year’s Indonesian election.

Thohir, a former owner of Italian three-time European champions Inter Milan and United States Major League Soccer team DC United, added that a four-nation bid was possible after talks with leaders in neighbouring countries in the past fortnight.

“When I visited Malaysia and Singapore both countries expressed interest to join Indonesia and Australia,” he said.

Erick Thohir, Indonesia’s state-owned enterprises minister, is also chief of the country’s football association.Credit: Bloomberg

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia launched its bid to hold the 2034 World Cup, which will have the support of “the entire Asian football family”, according to Asian Football Confederation president Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa.

Despite that endorsement, Australia, which sits within the Asian conference, was still entertaining the idea of throwing its hat into the ring, Football Australia chief executive James Johnson said last week.

After Australia’s failed attempt to host the 2022 World Cup, which was awarded to Qatar, having cost taxpayers $46 million, there has been hesitation about going it alone.

As a result, a combined bid may be the best option.

Thohir said he had spoken to Football Australia officials at the FIFA Congress in Rwanda in March about joining forces and reported the outcome of those talks to Indonesia President Joko Widodo.

“They said they wanted it,” he said. “We were waiting for the Australian government for their seriousness in working together with Indonesia.”

An Australian government spokesperson on Wednesday said: “The Australian government gives serious consideration to all bids for major sporting events, taking into account the level of Australian government support required and the broader socio-economic benefits that can be achieved, to deliver outcomes for all Australians through sport.”

Football Australia directed this masthead back to the statement provided last week by chief executive James Johnson, who said FA was “exploring the possibility of bidding for the 2029 FIFA Club World Cup and/or the FIFA World Cup 2034”.

The Indonesian tycoon indicated a four-way bid was a genuine chance, saying a cooperation agreement between the football federations of Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore could be signed on October 31, the last day for member bodies to signal their intentions for the 2034 World Cup.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud with FIFA president Gianni Infantino.Credit: Getty Images

The Football Association of Malaysia has referred inquiries from this masthead about a potential World Cup bid to Malaysia Minister of Youth and Sports Hannah Yeoh, who has not commented.

The remarks of the influential Thohir, however, suggest Indonesia favours linking with Australia, Malaysia and Singapore rather than forming part of a long-proposed bid sponsored by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The concept would face myriad hurdles, not least the physical distance between Australia and south-east Asia and the need to include co-hosts as automatic qualifiers. Malaysia and Singapore have never made it to the World Cup finals and Indonesia has only reached that point once, in colonial times as the Dutch East Indies in 1938.

Despite its teams being perennial underperformers, though, south-east Asia is an important market for FIFA.

Soccer is obsessively followed in many parts including Indonesia. The world’s fourth-most populous nation will next month hold the FIFA Under-17 World Cup.

Indonesia faces a task to prove itself a suitable co-host of a major global sporting spectacle, with its soccer reputation tainted by a legacy of fan violence and corruption. Last year, 135 spectators died in a crush at a first-division match in East Java when police fired tear gas in reaction to a pitch invasion.

Muslim-majority Indonesia sustained a further blow when it was stripped of the Under-20s World Cup this year after politicians rejected the presence of Israel, whose team had qualified.

But Thohir has committed to lifting the stocks of the game since taking over as its chief in February and Akmal Marhali - who fronts Indonesian soccer watchdog organisation Save Our Soccer - believes a compelling case can be presented for the country, which previously co-hosted the 2007 Asian Cup with Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

”We are quite strong. I think FIFA will see that the Middle East area has been the host with Qatar last year. Japan and Korea have been host too. I am sure FIFA will try other countries,” Marhali said.

“The potential to win if we join with Australia, Malaysia and Singapore is bigger too.”

Saudi Arabia is the only bidder for 2034 so far. The Gulf Arab state has pumped billions into sport in the past two years, with its Public Investment Fund buying a majority stake in English Premier League club Newcastle United and shaking up world golf with the inception of the LIV Golf tour. Soccer superstars Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Karim Benzema have also been recruited to the Saudi Pro League with enormous wages.

Human rights groups have labelled such enterprises as sportswashing, aimed at improving the kingdom’s image in the face of allegations of rights abuses such as the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

The next World Cup in 2026 will be held in the US, Canada and Mexico while the 2030 edition is set to be hosted by Morocco, Portugal and Spain with matches to also be played in Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay.

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