You wouldn’t know football is the world’s most popular sport by the way the average Queensland politician seems so determined to diminish the game.
“Response to the A (sic) mid-sized rectangular stadium for Brisbane at Perry Park E-Petition presented to the Queensland Parliament,” read the subject line to an email that dropped into mine and many other football fans’ inboxes at 6:10pm on Friday night.
The attached ministerial response came from Queensland’s Minister for Sport and Tourism, Michael Healy MP, in reaction to an e-petition started by Brisbane advocacy group Fund Football which at last count had attracted thousands of signatures.
“There are currently four rectangular stadia within an 80-kilometre radius of the Brisbane CBD, which includes Suncorp Stadium—the world’s best rectangular stadium—and the newly refurbished Ballymore complex.”
Putting aside the parochial nonsense about Suncorp Stadium being the “world’s best,” it seems absurd to suggest that because there’s a 27,000-capacity stadium some 80 kilometres away in Robina, football fans in Brisbane are adequately catered for.
If that were the case, all the hashtags for the Socceroos’ upcoming World Cup qualifier against Bahrain in September would read #VisitBrisbane and not #ExperienceGoldCoast.
Keanu Baccus celebrates a goal with teammates (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Yet it’s hard to escape the feeling that any time football generates positive headlines – like by selling out a midweek encounter against an Asian opponent within days of going on sale – the majority of Queensland’s politicians would rather look the other way.
Quite why the incumbent Labor government has been so pathologically anti-football is anyone’s guess – not least when the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup helped swell the state’s coffers – although the code’s well-documented political infighting no doubt hasn’t helped.
That’s why the state’s only fully professional football team Brisbane Roar has been working quietly behind the scenes to re-establish what has at times been a fractious relationship with Football Queensland.
Many in the city would like to see Brisbane Roar host both men’s and women’s fixtures at the perfectly located but otherwise ramshackle Perry Park in the inner-city suburb of Bowen Hills, given the 52,500 capacity Suncorp Stadium is too large for their needs.
That’s why the folks behind Fund Football started their petition in the first place – to try and get the same sort of funding support towards a Perry Park upgrade that other domestic codes appear to enjoy without question.
“It is my understanding that in addition to the use of Suncorp Stadium, Ballymore Stadium is the current home training base for the Brisbane Roar Men’s team, with both the men’s and women’s teams playing home games at Ballymore during the 2023-24 season,” Healy wrote in his ministerial response.
He’s only half-right about that, with the men forced to train predominantly at the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre last season because Ballymore’s rock-hard training pitch was both overused and underwatered.
They also drew one of their lowest-ever attendances for a men’s fixture when just 3178 fans turned up at Ballymore for a Saturday afternoon showdown with Macarthur Bulls last March.
Brisbane Roar’s own attempts to solve their stadium conundrum have ranged from rumours of owners The Bakrie Group eyeing off tracts of land in Springfield, to the three seasons the club spent playing men’s fixtures out of Dolphin Stadium in Redcliffe.
All of which leaves the question of why it’s so difficult for football to get the same sort of funding to upgrade Perry Park that other codes take for granted.
After all, the $4 million the Queensland Government tipped in to the Legacy ’23 program pales in comparison to the $18 million spent on a new AFL stadium in Springfield and the $15 million delivered to Rugby Australia – as Brisbane Times journalist Cameron Atfield has pointed out.
And the question remains what sort of Olympic Games the state could possibly deliver when the proposed venues for the most popular event by tickets sold – football – are currently regional facilities in Toowoomba, Cairns, and the Sunshine Coast.
Perhaps it’s a moot point given October’s state elections are expected to deliver a change in government anyway.
But it’s hard not to wonder whether Queensland wouldn’t give a more welcoming reception to the rest of the world if only the state’s politicians could see beyond the goalposts of the domestic codes.