The untold story of how Australia won hosting rights to the Women’s World Cup

Here, in Steven Lowy’s opulent corner office in Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD, with breathtaking views to the north, east and south, there’s no tangible sign of his time as Football Federation Australia chairman.

No framed pictures with superstar players on the wall. No replica trophies of past successes on the shelves.

His legacy to the game can be considered in other ways as the FIFA Women’s World Cup reaches its climax because, without Lowy, his board and key executives, none of what we’ve witnessed in the past month would have happened.

“I am very conscious this isn’t about me – but I want this story to be known,” Lowy tells this masthead in a rare interview. “It would’ve been easy for the politicians to say FIFA’s too hot. But they didn’t. They were prepared to back it because they knew it was right.”

Lowy is the principal of Lowy Financial Group. His legendary father, Frank, had his fingers burned in 2010 when, as chairman of FFA (which is now called Football Australia), he oversaw a failed bid for the 2022 men’s World Cup.

More than $46 million of taxpayer money resulted in just a solitary vote from FIFA delegates before Qatar was eventually given the rights. It emerged afterwards that the entire process had been riddled with corruption, leading to much-needed reform and the eventual expulsion of president Sepp Blatter.

Success has many fathers and Australia’s hosting of this women’s World Cup, in conjunction with New Zealand, is no different. But the first stumbling block was easily the largest and most important: convincing then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to fund and then support a successful bid.

“Steven’s a very persuasive guy,” Turnbull says. “He made the case to us that this was going to be different. That he wouldn’t face the same problems that his father faced last time. That’s always challenging because your natural reaction is, ‘Oh yeah, why?’”

Steven Lowy (right) and father Frank during a 2017 video conference.Credit: Sarah Keayes

Greg Hunt, the minister for sport at the time, recalls it this way: “There was a lot of caution from the bureaucracy and rightly so because the Qatar bidding process was completely corrupt. We’d spent $46 million with high promises and one vote. So we approached it with high interest but high caution.”

Australia had been toying with the idea of hosting the Women’s World Cup since the 1990s, but it wasn’t until 2015, when FFA devised its “whole of football” strategy, that it crystallised into something more serious.

Two aspects of the document, seen by this masthead, stick out.

First, a mandate for Australian teams to play a “proactive brand of football based on effective possession with the cutting edge provided by creative individuals. Defensively, the key components are quick transition and intelligent collective pressing”.

Second, a desire to host a Women’s World Cup because it “would provide a great showcase for the women’s game in Australia and inspire a generation of women to take up football.”

FFA had been a pioneer in women’s sport, long before the rugby codes and the AFL established their own domestic leagues. The W-League, which was born in 2008, was the first professional football competition for women in this country, sponsored by the Lowys’ Westfield Corporation.

A young Sam Kerr in action for Perth in the W-League in 2009.Credit: Fairfax Media

The problem for the FFA was not everyone shared their vision; specifically, A-League clubs that felt the funding would be better spent on the domestic league. “The investment in the women’s game and Socceroos got in the craw of the A-League clubs,” Steven Lowy says. “But we knew we had to make this happen. It was a moment in time where doubling down on women’s football, on the Matildas, would create a legacy for generations to see.”

Then FFA chief executive David Gallop, who had joined the organisation from the NRL in 2012, felt a Women’s World Cup could heal a fractious code. “The game’s got all these internal tussles, all these tensions around money and what can be afforded,” he recalls. “But this was a vision for the future and a way of trying to unite the game.”

Then-FFA director, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, who is now chief executive of broadcaster Optus, remembers it as a “tricky time”.

“There were still questions about the failed Qatar Men’s World Cup bid, and it was a time when we had to sometimes pay broadcasters to show women’s football on TV,” she offers. “Not everyone shared the belief we had in women’s sport. But our board had watched the transformative effect the Women’s World Cup had on participation and the strength of the women’s football program in the USA, and we had conviction that hosting it in Australia would ignite the nation and do wonders for football and women’s sports in this country.”

Grappling with self-interested clubs was one thing. Convincing the federal government to fund and support the bid was another altogether.

Lowy sent his first letter to Turnbull on December 22, 2016, and, a month later, the prime minister responded positively but with caution because of what had happened in 2010.

Hunt came up with the idea of a two-tier model for the bid: $1 million up front then an additional $4 million once cabinet had been convinced that the bidding process would be “clean” and that FIFA reforms weren’t just lip service.

FFA’s bid to host the 2023 Women’s World Cup was launched by then-CEO David Gallop, then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, and then-FFA chairman Steven Lowy.Credit: Andrew Meares

“Bureaucracy, finance, treasury … they were, shall we say, very sceptical,” Hunt recalls. “So the two-stage process was the key. We invest a million and it’s lost, it’s still reasonably contained. If we get to December and it’s sufficiently advanced and sufficiently clean, we can proceed. Cabinet liked the safety and probity of the two stages.”

A similar process was used when Brisbane made a successful play for the 2032 Olympics, Hunt says.

Like the International Olympic Committee, FIFA had been viewed with suspicion for years about how it did business. But Lowy had witnessed the changes in FIFA from close range, establishing a tight relationship with newly appointed president Gianni Infantino.

“I had a front-row seat to see the political change that took place,” he says. “FIFA had gone through an extremely difficult time itself. The world was watching. Serious governance change was happening, and I could see it happening … It gave me the confidence to represent to the Australian government that Australia would have a fair crack at this. We’d seen the changes that gave us the confidence we’d get a clean shot. The rules of engagement in 2010 and before that were very different in 2017.”

Nevertheless, Gallop wrote to FIFA in April 2017 seeking assurances on behalf of the government that the bid process would be clean. In her reply, Sarai Bareman, FIFA’s chief women’s football officer, explained how the governing body’s new structure meant there was a “clear separation of power between the politics and administration of the game.”

A strong relationship with then-new FIFA president Gianni Infantino was central to the bid’s success.Credit: AP

Hunt says then-treasurer Scott Morrison was onboard and, while cabinet asked searching questions about the bid, there was, ultimately, little push back.

For Turnbull, hosting the Women’s World Cup could be part of something bigger than football. “At that time, we were grappling with the challenge like every government with domestic violence against women and girls,” he says. “That was the first policy announcement of my government. [My wife] Lucy had great insight that while not all disrespect of women leads to violence against women, that is where all violence against women begins. I don’t think Steven nor I imagined it would have the impact this World Cup has had – but it’s making a point in the best way possible.”

With the government on board, the sell to FIFA was on. Lowy, Gallop and Mark Falvo (head of corporate strategy and government and international relations) spent months criss-crossing the globe in Lowy’s jet, meeting with FIFA delegates while also getting in front of Infantino as much as possible to state Australia’s case.

“Just getting to see Gianni Infantino needs to be carefully organised,” Gallop says. “You can’t knock on his door; you need to make appointments, be ready and succinct.”

Lowy finished up as chairman in late 2018 while Gallop went a year later, both caught up in the ugly politics that often hold back football in Australia. New chair Chris Nikou and incoming chief executive James Johnson, who had worked for FIFA from 2013-18, were fundamental in getting Australia over the line in the final six months of the process.

In late 2019, after FIFA announced the tournament would expand from 24 to 32 teams, Australia wisely amended its bid to include joint hosting rights with New Zealand. The following year, the joint bid beat Colombia in the final round of voting.

There appears to be a lingering paranoia in FA about giving credit to the former administration that started the process. Nikou indicated he wanted to speak for this story before the FA media department said he wouldn’t be speaking.

“As the bid got closer, I’m sure James Johnson used his knowledge of the FIFA network to get to the right people as well,” Gallop says.

Was awarding Australia payback for the calamity of 2010?

“I’m sure it was in the back of their minds,” Lowy says. “Did anyone think like they owed us one? I can’t answer that. But if you have the best bid, you have the best bid.”

The result from the collective efforts of many people has been there for all to see: from the Matildas’ success in reaching the semi-final to packed stadiums around the country to astronomical TV ratings on both Channel Seven and Optus.

“Ten years ago, we paid broadcasters to screen women’s football,” Bayer Rosmarin says. “Now, we reached 11.15 million viewers and broke streaming records with women’s sports. That is progress.”

Lowy says his father, who is 92, has been watching from overseas with enormous pride.

“He was burnt but people like my father go for things,” Lowy says. “He’s had a lifetime of success but in that lifetime not everything is successful. He’s deeply disappointed at the outcome [of the 2010 bid] but life is measured over a long period of time. He’s had more wins than losses. If you don’t go for things, you don’t change the boundaries.”

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