Brawl hasn't hurt World Cup bid: Buckley

It may have been the most tumultuous week in Football Federation Australia's
audacious plan to land the World Cup, but top man Ben Buckley insists no lasting
damage has been done to the bid.
A public brawl with the AFL and NRL over stadia and scheduling is far from resolved,
even after a meeting between Buckley and his NRL counterpart David Gallop on Friday,
but the FFA chief says the headlines ricocheting around the globe do not pose a
permanent problem.
"I think every country has issues that it has to deal with - logistical,
operational, scheduling issues, stadium issues," Buckley told reporters after his
meeting with Gallop.
"This is just one of those operational issues that each country has to work through
during the course of the bid so I don't believe over time it will have a negative
impact at all on our bid."
All Buckley could really offer after Friday's meeting was the promise of more
meetings, but the agendas will need to revolve around some new suggestions as to how
the NRL could run a season if a World Cup were to be held in Australia in 2018 or
2022.
The NRL has already said it has problems with the FFA's first draft of options and
Gallop said that was the document still being discussed.
"Our team will work with David's team to address scheduling issues around club
matches, around the State of Origin," Buckley said.
"We do have time. We have to have our bid book in by May, we have to resolve some of
this information by the end of February, early March.
"I think with careful and considered planning that we can minimise the impact."
Gallop is adamant he wants to cooperate with FFA but emerged from the meeting with a
more negative than positive message, concerned NRL clubs could go broke if the
league couldn't run "effectively" during a World Cup.
"We are happy to try and work together but the price of that cooperation cannot be
such that it puts the future of our clubs at risk," Gallop said.
"We have to be able to operate effectively for our own clubs' sake.
" ... There is only so much disruption our clubs can endure and still remain viable
in the years that follow."
Gallop said the disruption to the NRL season, the relocation of games and the extent
to which his competition could carry on during a World Cup were all "open
questions".
"The No.1 concern is simply the disruption to the cashflow of our business," he said.
"Our clubs rely on people coming regularly to footy ... That would be something that
we wouldn't trifle with easily."
But Gallop said that wasn't a straight-out request for compensation, estimated by
one club executive as needing to be around the $100 million mark.
"There's been no suggestion at this stage that there be any monetary figure," Gallop
said. "Whether that becomes an issue in the future, I'm not sure yet."
Buckley, though, didn't rule out a pay-out.
"We certainly discussed the potential impact financially on clubs and the league,"
he said.
"We understand, because our clubs go through the same issues, that there's issues
around season-ticket holders, corporate suite holders, the number of fans that come
through the gate so we're very aware and sympathetic to those issues.
"We have to get to a final selection of venues before we can really address the
specific detail behind some of those issues."
Buckley confirmed Australia had on Friday formally submitted the bidding agreement,
which commits FFA to a "technical compliant bid proposal" in May, to host the World
Cup in 2018 or 2022.