So what's next for the world game in Australia?

Once the Football Federation of Australia gives itself a weekend to ‘kick the cat', so to speak, it has refocus on what is, after all, it's core business which is managing and growing the game in Australia.

The first item on the agenda should be to grow the Socceroos. The national team has the potential to become the No.1 sporting team we have, so the FFA needs to work to make them more accessible - a key failing with our cricketers - and, more importantly, good.

Winning Asian Cups and making the knock-out stages of the World Cup with some sort of regularity will help us garner more than one vote next time we mount a bid to host the finals.

The A-League also needs work. Get the crowds back and consider getting a game on free-to-air TV each week. It is a great product, beautifully attended to by Fox Sports, but the league needs to broaden its appeal and its horizons. A national knock-out Cup, a local version of the FA Cup, is an obvious new wrinkle for the domestic game.

Then there's game development. The image of the sport will take a bit of a beating thanks to the events in Zurich. Competing sports, particularly the AFL and the NRL, will now come at soccer hard.

Frank Lowy is a fighter and Ben Buckley is bright. I can't imagine there will be too much brooding and that come Monday morning, it will be business as usual for the FFA.

At the time of writing, neither the AFL nor the NRL have commented in the decision in Zurich. Doubtless, they will make the right noises because, however reluctantly, they had thrown their support behind the World Cup bid.

But you can imagine that privately, Andrew Demetriou and David Gallop are rubbing their hands together with glee. The 2022 AFL and NRL seasons will continue unimpeded, adding value to their TV and sponsorship arrangements down the track. From a development point of view, the ''play soccer and you could play in a World Cup in Australia'' carrot is now gone.

No matter how accommodating, a World Cup in Australia would have presented a huge challenge for the other football codes to overcome in so many respects.

We are a more sophisticated sporting nation than a generation ago, and our soccer culture is growing by the year. But with growth aspirations of their own, you can't blame the AFL and the NRL if their Friday night drinks this evening are just that bit more festive than usual.