Don’t have a subscription so not sure what’s behind the paywall
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/billionaire-emerges-as-potential-white-knight-to-save-beleaguered-a-league-club-20260708-p60dpi.html
Your right. El Salvador is probably happy doing this kind of stuff affordably. Whereas the kind of Aussie corporate culture that is prevalent at FA, which bang on about ‘elite standards’ would make such an endeavour way too expensive. A kind of Baumol effect.
From memory Craig Moore in the past was based in Europe doing this kind of work for the FA. And I remember at least one camp about ten years ago which called in a bunch of dual internationals such as Brad Inman.
Agree that there is a bunch of nuance here, although I wonder if the issue with many Japanese and South Korean players is that few in comparison to Oz have dual citizenships. So they can’t really argue for them to turn out for Italy or whoever rather than Japan/Korea.
I also wonder at the role...
To me it seems less a case of whether it’s a case of capping these players early ala Kewell, as it is whether they would accept the call up. Apparently FA is pursing Arena hard, but reading between the lines of what Okon and other have said re Volpato and his own son, other forces are often at...
Sounds like a big battle is brewing
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/07/05/world-cup-2026/european-soccer-uefa-strike-back-fifa-folarin-balogun-belgium-00987486