All Too Easy For Australia.

ALL TOO EASY FOR THE AUSSIES

However difficult Ireland's qualifying campaign might be, the Australian national team or the Socceroo's as they so humorously refer to themselves are having no such difficulties. With two games to go in Group 1 of the Asian qualifiers, the Aussies have already booked their place for South Africa having picked up the clinching but hard fought point they needed with a scoreless draw last Sunday night in that toughest of tough places to go to... er, away to Qatar.

I watched some of the game on the old television. The crowd looked more like a gathering at the OPEC AGM than football fans. It couldn't have been further from 100,000 Iranians screaming for your head in Tehran as the Irish team experienced a few years back. Anyway I guess for Australia, away to Bahrain is what passes for a crucial World Cup Qualifier these days. It's hardly the equivalent of travelling to Sofia at the end of a long season.

Australia being the great nation of sporting competitors that they are obviously decided somewhere along the line that they couldn't compete in the old season and so they campaigned to be put in to the Asian qualifiers even though technically they are in Oceania and not in fact Asia at all. If they were so unhappy, why not throw them in with Europe, that's where all their players play anyway. Maybe then, it could be said that they would have qualified on merit.

Previously they played in the Oceania section where they dominated before going to a play off against one of the South American teams. They beat Uruguay rather controversially to qualify for the World Cup in 2006 or as the Uruguayans would say, they cheated their way through the play-off helped in no small part by FIFA's desire to promote football in, of all places Oceania.

The Uruguayans got up to a few tricks themselves in that one, making sure the game started at the worst possible time for the Aussie but then that's what football is about. Fiercely competitive games between two teams looking for an edge any way they can get it.

If that experience proved too unnerving for the Aussies, they have no such stresses nowadays. Games against Bahrain, Uzbekistan and Japan the only other footballing powerhouses they had to negotiate on their way to footballs most prestigious tournament.

The Australians qualifying so easily wouldn't bother me so much if they were actually any good but their team contains players like Josh Kennedy who scored a whole two goals all season in the Bundesliga for relegated Karlsruhe. They are captained by the mercenary Lucas Neill, the man who chose West Ham over Liverpool and stalwarts include Colchester United's Chris Coyne and Scott Chipperfield from FC Basel.

They do have some good players such as a well past it Harry Kewell and I'm sure they will be relieved to see the return of Mark Viduka just as soon as he discovers a process to reverse the effects of aging. It's just that Australia shouldn't be allowed such a free ride into these tournaments while European teams have to fight tooth and nail to even achieve a play off place.

There is no honour in getting to a World Cup the way Australia have. Their most important player was whoever they sent to twist FIFA's arm to get them such an easy passage to the final. It's time FIFA had a good look at the qualifying process in it's entirety now. With so many international players playing in Europe and so much travel involved for the average player, maybe it's time to look at a fairer world wide qualifying system. Giving below average teams like Australia a free ride to the finals only devalues the competition as a whole as well as lowering the standard of the tournament.

It's not going to do much for the promotion of the game when Chris Coyne and Josh Kennedy are strutting their stuff in South Africa while Dimitar Berbatov or Robbie Keane are sitting at home watching it on the telly.