POPULARISING SOCCER

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 193, 30 July 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

POPULARISING SOCCER

AMBITIOUS IDEA PROPOUNDED ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH TEAMS TO VISIT AUSTRALIA. PROPOSAL MAY INCLUDE NEW ZEALAND. u Undoubtedly the most ambitious scheme ever known in the history of Soccer in Australia will be submitted, by New South Wales Soccer League to the delegates from other States attending the carnival in Sydney and Newcastle next Week.

It is proposed that the Australian Soccer Football Association invite the English Football Association and the Scottish Football Association to send representative teams to Australia during the 1933 season, with the object of giving first-class demonstrations of the code in the various capital cities of the Commonwealth, and also to play triangular tests with Australia. From an Australian viewpoint the scheme is an excellent one and should

get the wholehearted support of all States, states a Melbourne writer. The difficulty does not lie in the Southern Hemisphere, but with the English and Scottish clubs concerned. Association football is now established on such firm business lines, with capital running into millions involved, that it is difficult for clubs to release players for such a trip as that proposed because it must cut into the end of one season and the beginning ot the next.

Only Best Required. Only the best players are required, and an invitation to both countries would bring this about more so than an invitation to one of them. Keen rivalry still exists between England and Scotland. This was evidenced by a record gate of £14,285 at the Wembley Stadium in 1930 and an attendance of 130,000 at Hampden Park, Glasgow, last year. The competition for players of firstclass has become so keen in England that when the two London clubs. Arsenal and Chelsea, meet, for instance, tho 22 players participating cost, in transfers alone, more than £lOO,OOO. So tho difficulty o! getting clubs to release players of that standing to come to Australia is easily understood; not only because they would bo without their services for a number of games but because of the risk of in-

jury which might end their playing career. There is,one aspect that might influence both countries to send teams, and that is that the Football Association will be celebrating its 70th anniversary and Scotland its diamond jubilee.

Financial Side. Finance naturally must play a big part in a scheme of such ambitious dimensions, and jt is proposed to raise an initial sum of £12,500 by the issue of 100,000 tickets at 2/6 each, which will entitle the holders to see any one of the games. The burden on Australia could be considerably lowered if the tour was extended to New Zealand; but more concrete and binding guarantees would have to be forthcoming from the sister Dominion than on the last occasion, when Australia was left to carry the whole of the expense itself or cancel the tour. The practical assistance given to Australia by the Football Association by a donation of £5OO plus exchange (£6s'o in the early part of the year gives one confidence that tho invitation wdl not he lightly turned down. However, if England cannot accede to tho request to send a team Scotland may be able to oblige. Invitations to other countries should be taboo in future; the visits of the Canadians, Chinese and Czecho-Slova. kians were tee eostly to be repeated.