Fifa blocked a Qatari bid to naturalise Brazilian A lton. Photo / AP
A Parnell housing development, a World Cup-winning captain and Middle Eastern ambition has led to the All Whites training in "space-age" facilities this week.
The All Whites leave today for Doha, where they will be based at the Aspire Academy for the next seven days ahead of their match in Uzbekistan on September 8.
The Aspire facilities are almost beyond belief. The centrepiece is the multi-purpose Aspire Dome, which houses a 5500-seat football stadium, an IAAF-standard track and field facility and an Olympic swimming pool, all in climate-controlled conditions. There are also facilities for 10 other sports inside the 250,000sq/m arena, constructed at a cost of US$1 billion ($1.2 billion) in 2004. Seven outdoor football pitches surround the dome and a 300m hotel borders the site.
"It's as good as anything I've seen anywhere," says well-travelled All Whites coach Anthony Hudson. "The training grounds are unbelievable, up there with what you would see at Manchester City or Manchester United. As a coach, it's the kind of place you want to put your boots on and play. I'm jealous of the players."
The facility has its own water supply - necessary in the desert nation - and there are irreverent touches, with extra air conditioning under the seats and beside the pitch. Birdsong is even piped in throughout the day. Most of the world's biggest clubs, such as Barcelona, Bayern United, Liverpool and the Manchester giants, have all had pre-season stints there.
New Zealand's opportunity arose by chance.
An Aspire director is building a house in Auckland, and popped into the New Zealand Football offices for a chat last year. That led to two local goalkeepers being invited to an Iker Casillas training camp at Aspire early this year, followed by the current opportunity. The Junior All Whites will also be in Doha playing in a tournament with Qatar, Morocco and Chile.
"We hope it can be used again as a training base," says NZF high performance manager Fred de Jong. "It's an ideal hub between Europe and Australasia and ties in with our future plans. The Middle East is also becoming the stronghold of Asian football [seven of the top 10 nations in the confederation are from the region]."
The Aspire Academy is the bricks and mortar representation of Qatar's incredible football ambition. They might not be able to take over the football world, but the tiny Gulf state has made an incredible, albeit controversial, splash in the past 10 years.
In 2007, the Aspire Africa programme was launched. Think of a Football Idol scenario, on a massive scale. In the first year, 430,000 young players were screened across seven African countries as Aspire coaches and scouts travelled from village to village in SUVs. The best 24 - some as young as 13 - ended up in Doha on football scholarships.
The programme has since been renamed Aspire Football Dreams and expanded to Asia and Latin America. A second academy was built in Senegal and there's an Aspire presence in Paraguay, Guatemala, Thailand and Vietnam. They claim to have assessed more than 3.5 million potential players, with around 550,000 screened annually. The top graduates end up at Qatar-owned KAS Eupen, a Belgian second division club.
Qataris insist it's all about social responsibility but cynics see a link to their successful 2022 World Cup bid. In total, five countries associated with the Aspire programme, including Paraguay and Thailand, had representatives on the all-powerful Fifa executive committee.
There has also been speculation that Qatar, who are ranked 92 in the world and have never come close to qualifying for a World Cup, might fill their 2022 team with naturalised players.
There is history there. Four members of Qatar's weightlifting team at the 1999 Asian Games were Bulgarian-born and world champion Kenyan runner Stephen Cherono was reportedly promised US$1000 ($1200) a month for life when he became a Qatari citizen (and changed his name to Saif Saaeed Shaheen) in 2003.
In 2004, Fifa blocked a Qatari attempt to naturalise three Brazilians, including Ailton who was the top scorer in the Bundesliga, and a recent national squad featured 11 naturalised players (including players born in Uruguay, France, Brazil and Ghana).
"Could it happen? I suppose maybe some of the players feel like they want to represent Qatar, because Qatar helped them when their home countries did not," Aspire sports director Andreas Bleicher told the New York Times in July. "[But] if we naturalise a few players, what will happen? Everyone will kill us. Everyone will see. We are not stupid and neither is anyone else."
It's hardly new, from Alfredo di Stefano in the 1950s to Diego Costa this year, and many other countries, including New Zealand, have profited from overseas-born talent, although Fifa increased the residency requirement in response.
Qatar's ambition seems limitless. As well as Aspire, Qatari interests acquired Paris Saint Germain in 2011 and state-owned Qatar Airways became naming rights sponsor of Barcelona later the same year in a 96 million ($151 million) deal.
The two New Zealand teams will spend next week at the epicentre of Qatari football, with even their hotel inside Qatar's tallest building (300m). Junior All Whites coach Darren Bazeley, who has spent time at Aspire, is looking forward to using the "space-age" facilities again.
"It blows you away," Bazeley says. "They take care of everything. Last time we turned up at our training pitch and a few minutes later drinks, cones, [wall] manikins and ice were delivered by a fleet of golf buggys."