In April 2010, the Football Federation Australia saved North Queensland Fury from extinction. Eleven months on the heroes have had a change of heart, ushering in an age where money, not football, will be the governing body's biggest concern...

When Sepp Blatter announced Qatar not Australia as the host of the 2022 World Cup many feared this was not just the death of our nation's World Cup dream, but also of North Queensland Fury.

Rumours had long persisted that the club had been saved to prevent embarrassing headlines for the nation's national competition in the lead up to the FIFA vote.

However, following the disappointment of missing out on the World Cup, FFA made all the right noises, speaking of the need to focus on the growth of the national competition, and to build on the hard work that had transformed the game in six years.

Those connected with Fury could also hark back to the reasons FFA Chairman Frank Lowy gave when deciding to save the club after previous owner Don Matheson was unable to continue funding the side after one season in the competition.

"I think it's very important to keep football in North Queensland and not just kind of abandon it, either by the FFA or the people of North Queensland, for a few dollars.

"We need keep that in mind for whatever we do, we don't want to give up an area for football where we have just started, and has a great future," Lowy said back in April 2010.

Fast forward 11 months and the need, albeit for more than a few dollars - potentially $2million - has outweighed the bright potential for the game in North Queensland that Lowy spoke about less than a year ago.

It is highly doubtful that those at the FFA who decided to save Fury thought that it would achieve its potential and be ready to stand on its own two feet in the space of a season under FFA guidance.

To be sure that Fury would need high levels of financial support for a period longer than one season the FFA needed only to look at Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth to see that finding the right investment takes time.

Finding the right investment would have required the FFA to make the club as attractive as possible and this meant creating an environment where the club could attract quality players and staff.

By only allowing the club to sign players, except David Williams, for only one season and operating on 85 per cent of the salary cap it was hardly an environment built for success.

It is also hardly what rival codes are doing when they are expanding into new markets.

When rugby league decided to expand to Melbourne the club were given every resource to attract quality players.

Melbourne Storm went a little further than what was fair by cheating the salary cap, however, the point is that success on the field was recognised as extremely important to expanding into an environment where other codes dominate.

It was not only this that was done to help establish rugby league in Melbourne.

Showcase matches such as the State of Origin and Test Matches were also played there as advertisements for the game and as a show of commitment to developing the game in a new market.

Did FFA do the same in North Queensland?

No.

There was never any talk of the Socceroos playing in North Queensland any time soon, or of any plans to attract any big name teams to the region to play in an exhibition match.

There were chances to do so.

David Beckham and his LA Galaxy side came and played in Newcastle, could have they have been persuaded to do the same in North Queensland?

Could Everton, Rangers or AEK Athens taken in Townsville on their pre-season tours of Australia?

Could the Socceroos have played their farewell match against New Zealand before the 2010 World Cup in Townsville instead of Melbourne?

If the FFA could have done any of these it would have been a huge endorsement for the game in North Queensland and might have highlighted the potential of football to would-be investors in the region who may well have helped save the Fury.

It will be easy for the FFA to point to financial constraints to show that many of these ideas were not feasible and that it is not its role to financially prop up clubs.

However, it is their role to grow the game and it does have a responsibility of acting in its best interests.

The FFA invited the world to "come play" with their World Cup bid catch-phrase.

It seems as though North Queensland did not get the same invite and that a generation of young footballers and football fans will be locked out of the beautiful game.