Whatever the outcome of Friday's World Cup announcement I hope we can finally dispense with the gag-inducing civilities afforded the AFL.
The code's talking head Andrew Demetriou - surely a mob enforcer in a former life - is possibly feeling a little antsy with D-Day fast approaching.
Sensing his spoiler tactics have left even AFL fans a bit queasy, Demetriou has adopted a slightly more conciliatory tone of late.
Just last week he extolled the virtues of introducing World Cup devotees to a thrilling match-up between Collingwood and Bairnsdale, or some such outfit.
Demetriou is so deliciously deluded it's almost charming. World Cup or no World Cup, I suspect the AFL will remain Victoria's secret but without the peek-a-boo appeal.
For its part football's governing body has struck a pragmatic pose; tickling Demetriou's fancy with one hand and reaching out for the ultimate prize with the other.
As a consequence the bid's stadium agreements will see hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into AFL grounds, and that's before we get to the sizeable compensation demanded by the code for disruption to its domestic season (does it have any other kind?). What a pity so little thought was given to hiving off these parochial clashes to Nauru where there's a known market for displaced persons.
Instead a total of $2.3 billion has been set aside for new and improved stadia, about half of which will be spent on grounds not specifically designed for football. That's largely due to the seating requirements of FIFA, true, but there's also a sense that buying the AFL's silence during the bid process has come at a high price. If we don't play our cards right the AFL will be left holding all of them.
It's hard to fathom how publicly funded sporting assets could be hijacked by one code to the possible detriment of an entire nation. AFL is a big fish in a small pond, but it's still a small pond.
In contrast Australia is in the running to hold the world's biggest party. It happens to be football's party. Ceding so much ground (literally) to AFL is like sending the caterers home with the presents just because they handed over the sausage rolls.
Hopefully the shadow boxing will come to end in the early hours of Friday morning. Win or lose the FFA needs to show it's prepared to muscle up in the increasingly bitter turf wars. Being the new kid on the block has limited appeal if you're constantly being mugged for your lunch money - and so it is with football.
As Sydney FC CEO Edwin Lugt recently pointed out, the ultimate goal of every football club is to have "their own dedicated stadium." That might be some time off for most in the A-League, but we can certainly look to negotiate better stadium deals that don't put clubs on the back foot before a ball is even kicked. Making sure our fixtures don't play second fiddle to motorcross, monster trucks or the Traveling Wilburys would help. Shared tenancy arrangements will always present challenges, as does the timing of turf relaying, but at the moment A-League clubs just don't get the rub of the green.
Look at the stands, corporate boxes and dining rooms - many of them are named after AFL, cricket, rugby or league heroes. Recognition of football legends at our home grounds is virtually non-existent. Football needs a sense of legacy and history more profound than "this is the spot where Big Ljubo did his knee".
Groundhopping websites give a sense of how far we still have to go. Here, the home ground is elevated to a central figure in the grand sweep of a club's history and culture. For every Old Trafford, San Siro and Camp Nou there's a Haverhill Rovers with an engaging story to tell.
You get a glimpse of the future watching young fans swarm onto the turf at the end of an A-League game in a kind of controlled pitch invasion. You don't have to be knee-high to appreciate the moment (personally, any patch of green that doesn't require walking back and forth with a can of weed n' feed is okay by me). Most of all it's a small gesture that makes you realise what could be.
If we win the right to host the World Cup then, at the very least, the FFA must leverage better conditions and recognition for the A-League at home grounds. The billions poured into infrastructure must leave us with more than a post-party hangover. Even if the bid sinks, it's a battle we can't avoid. Until then, A-League fans and their clubs will remain strangers in their own land.
