Cowshed Cowboy wrote:If they want to develop football in Asean how about Fifa putting serious cash into school pitch facilities, youth development, coaching, academies etc etc. I'm sure a 1% cut in the Fifa travel and entertainment budget could go a hell of a long way for proper sporting facilities for kids in Cambodia.

Football is the most popular sport in the world solely because you don't need much money to play it. You need a ball and you can play – a huge reason it's popular in 3rd countries.

I think generally most of the populations in the region would be for it.

There are ALOT of locals who are football fans and players all over the region. And sport is always an important part of any societies culture. I don't know if they should waste money building a monster stadium, but there is already a few in the region already:

- Shah Alam Stadium - 80,000 Shah Alam, Malaysia Malaysia
- Rajamangala Stadium - 65,000 Bangkok, Thailand Thailand
- Palaran Stadium - 60,000 Samarinda, Indonesia Indonesia
- Singapore National Stadium - 55,000 Singapore Singapore
- Phnom Penh National Olympic Stadium - 50,000 Cambodia Cambodia (Does Phnom Penh National Olympic Stadium really hold 50K?)
- Can Tho Stadium - 50,000 Cần Thơ Vietnam
- Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium - 50,000 Kuala Terengganu

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote:I don't get it. Western media would be silenced by ASEAN leaders...?

Actually in Thailand they were blocking CNN and some other western channels during their coup. I don't know if they still are. Then again I believe they were blocking all local media too.

FreeSocrates! wrote: . I don't know if they should waste money building a monster stadium, but there is already a few in the region already:

- Shah Alam Stadium - 80,000 Shah Alam, Malaysia Malaysia
- Rajamangala Stadium - 65,000 Bangkok, Thailand Thailand
- Palaran Stadium - 60,000 Samarinda, Indonesia Indonesia
- Singapore National Stadium - 55,000 Singapore Singapore
- Phnom Penh National Olympic Stadium - 50,000 Cambodia Cambodia (Does Phnom Penh National Olympic Stadium really hold 50K?)
- Can Tho Stadium - 50,000 Cần Thơ Vietnam
- Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium - 50,000 Kuala Terengganu

I think that's a key issue, due to the massive costs of funding new stadia from scratch it would seem more reasonable/sensible to select countries where only upgrades to existing facilities are required. Spreading the cost between countries with a regional format makes sense and would be an interesting proposition. Given transport costs are relatively cheap from a travelling fans perspective it could be quite attractive.

I'm really interested to see how Brazil turns out as a tournament.