Socceroos coach Graham Arnold blasts $1.7bn snub of ‘homeless’ World Cup heroes

Graham Arnold has had enough, blasting the Australian government for its lopsided funding in sports and imploring them to help grant a home for the Socceroos.

Australia's coach Graham Arnold reacts after his team lost the Qatar 2022 World Cup round of 16 football match between Argentina and Australia at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium in Al-Rayyan, west of Doha on December 3, 2022. (Photo by Alfredo ESTRELLA / AFP)

Australia’s Harry Souttar hones his craft at Leicester City’s $190m Centre of Excellence, which features 21 playing fields, cryotherapy chambers, indoor training pitch, hydrotherapy facilities, even a nine-hole golf course.

When arriving back in Australia on Socceroos duties he is treated like an unwanted orphan - Souttar and his overseas teammates are forced to take recovery ice baths in their cramped hotel room bathtubs.

They board a bus to train at decaying Leichhardt Oval, a treasure for Wests Tigers NRL fans but hardly a world-class training facility. It’s not even a soccer field.

Welcome to life as a Socceroo, the team all tiers of Government don’t want to know about; the only major national sporting side without a home.

Leicester City’s new training facility.

“How can you have a culture when you don’t have a home? We don’t have a high performance centre to help players recover from flights and prepare for games,” said Socceroos coach Graham Arnold.

“While I am grateful for Leichhardt Oval, it’s embarrassing. We train on a rugby league field in a rugby league stadium – and it costs us $1500 (in fees) to do it.

“Where does the motivation come from for our players?

“I tell them we’re training at Leichhardt and you can see it on their faces. Our overseas players have flights to Australia 10 times a year and they don’t have any facilities here or backing.”

After watching NRL and AFL clubs continually secure massive Government grants for state-of-the-art high performance centres, Arnold has had enough.

The Socceroos are Australia’s nomads and the famous World Cup appearances may soon end, according to Arnold, if governments don’t help build the Socceroos an elite home base in Sydney.

Arnold also fears for the future of Australia’s rising stars, who desperately require a pathways system inside a Centre of Excellence. Australian soccer doesn’t even have a museum where the game’s past legends can be honoured and remembered.

It is estimated the former NSW Liberal Government outlaid around $1.7b in funding to help build new stadiums and NRL high performance centres at Wests Tigers, Manly, Souths, Newcastle, Canterbury and Parramatta, since 2016.

“Everyone wants to jump on board when we actually get to a World Cup but what about helping us get there? It’s pretty sad when you’re among the top three most popular teams in Australia and you’re homeless,” said Arnold, who thinks a new facility could be called the Socceroos Home of Football.

Harry Souttar at Leicester City training. Picture: Getty Images

Graham Arnold wants the Socceroos to receive more funding. Picture: Getty Images

“We would be the only nation in the top 100 countries, out of 252 football nations, that doesn’t have a home of football.

“I am a fan of all sports but it seems lop-sided in terms of what we get compared to what the other sports get.

“Why not us? Why don’t we get funding? If other sports get it, why can’t we?

“We don’t get any high performance funding from the government yet we have to do all this travel that no one else ever does – rugby league, rugby union. They don’t have to qualify for World Cups.

“The Socceroos were the team that inspired all those people to get up at 4am (in the World Cup) and go to fan sites to watch us play and we can’t get funding.”

Arnold is a massive rugby league fan and doesn’t hold a grudge against funding for NRL clubs – he is just angry his sport is continually snubbed and wants football to be given the respect he believes it has earned.

And Arnold’s frustration increased when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledged $240m for a new Hobart stadium over the weekend.

Arnold notes politicians send well wishes to the Socceroos before major games but don’t want to help the team be better resourced.

A fan survey in December 2022, conducted by Futures Sport and Entertainment, asked respondents to name their favourite national sport team, in order.

The Australian men’s cricket ran first, followed by the Socceroos, Kangaroos, Wallabies and Matildas. But soccer players still feel unwanted.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announcing the $240m investment into the “one-in-a-generation” urban renewal project, which will pave the way for Tasmania to enter the AFL. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Alastair Bett

“With a bit of luck, with a change to the Federal and NSW Governments, they might give our sport some respect and help us. You would expect the Federal Government to step in given the Socceroos are a national team,” Arnold said.

“How many games do the Kangaroos have to play to qualify for a World Cup? How many games do the Wallabies have to play to qualify for a World Cup? What about the AFL? They don’t have a World Cup. We have to play 20.

“The Socceroos are ranked 27 in the world and the Matildas are ranked in the top 10 – that is an absolute miracle under the current circumstances with the lack of resources we have.

“Unless something changes, that miracle will not continue. We won’t be qualifying for World Cups and junior World Cups.

“This isn’t something we have discussed over the past few months or years. Having a home of football was spoken about in the mid-1980s and we still don’t have one.”

The Matildas have a home in Melbourne.

Official statistics show football is the most popular sport in NSW, home to 41.4 per cent of all registered players in Australia.

“Football is the most popular sport in NSW, with more than five times the number of players than rugby league. Yet, rugby league continues to receive multiples of government facilities funding compared to football,” said FA CEO, James Johnson.

“Football Australia urgently seeks dialogue with the NSW Government to establish a national home for football, so that our national teams have a dedicated place to train and connect with the grassroots community.”

FA also claim to have “proactively had initial dialogue with the new NSW Government where we have sought to meet with them, but yet to have those in-person meetings.”

Originally published as Socceroos coach Graham Arnold blasts $1.7bn snub of ‘homeless’ World Cup heroes