Why Melbourne wasn't in the running for Women's World Cup final
The AFL's unwillingness to negotiate with Football Federation Australia over access to the MCG and Marvel Stadium ruled Melbourne out of hosting the semi-finals or final of the 2023 Women's World Cup, to be held jointly in Australia and New Zealand.
The most important game in Melbourne, at AAMI Park, will be a quarter-final. The final will be in Sydney, with the semi-finals in Auckland and Brisbane.
FFA sought to negotiate with the AFL and the NRL over use of grounds during the month-long period in July and August when the competition will be staged in 2023.
While the NRL was able to "reach an accommodation", as FFA chairman Chris Nikou put it on Friday morning, soccer's leaders quickly realised that it would struggle to get any similar deal with the AFL and opted to concentrate on negotiations to gain access to grounds in Auckland, Sydney and Brisbane for big matches.
The AFL owns Marvel Stadium and has a long-term deal with the MCG, the only two venues in the Victorian capital which can house crowds of more than 50,000, a FIFA requirement for the final matches.
The league was not prepared to suspend its competition and leave venues empty for weeks beforehand - in line with FIFA demands for clean stadia long before the tournament starts - to allow the MCG to play host to one extra game, even if it was a semi-final or the final of the World Cup.
The AFL-owned Marvel Stadium.Credit:Getty Images/Quinn Rooney
Smaller games in the group phase, the round of 16 and a quarter-final will be hosted at AAMI Park as grounds with a capacity of 30,000 are allowed to host matches of that status.
"It wouldn't make a lot of sense to have a semi-final with a stadium that's only got a capacity of 30,000," Nikou said on Friday.
"There is a bump-in and bump-out period - I think it's three weeks - and we have managed to reach accommodation with the NRL so we will be able to comply with the bump-in period [at rectangular venues in Brisbane, Sydney and NZ].
"We just worked with what we knew we had. If we could get [the] venues, that would have been great.
"We understand that they have got to look after their code but we have managed to come up with a cocktail of venues between Australia and NZ that suits this tournament.
"The bid team had the dialogue early on [with the AFL] but when it became clear that we weren't going to be able to reach an accommodation with them on venues like Optus [Stadium] in Perth, the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide, we just dealt with what we knew we could lock in."
Soccer-loving Melburnians have faced similar frustration in the past, most notably in the 2015 Asian Cup, when the quarter-final between South Korea and Uzbekistan was the highest-profile game played in the city.
Victorian officials at the time did not bid for a semi final as they felt that there would be more interest in the Australian Open tennis and a one-day cricket international. In the end, Sydney staged the final in front of 76,000 fans who saw the Socceroos triumph over South Korea in extra time.