“Footbrawl” is the breathless headline in today’s Herald Sun amid suggestions the MCG might be out of commission for virtually an entire AFL season should Australia host either the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cups.

The AFL has tried to play the good corporate citizen, as it did in 2000 with the Olympics and 2006 with the Commonwealth Games. But the dislocation and inconvenience will be far greater this time around.

Public opinion doesn’t provide much of a guide as to what the AFL should do. The holier-than-thou ‘world game’ crowd are in their element, telling the AFL to crawl back into its provincial hole and to give FIFA and the FFA whatever they need.

Unfortunately for the footy crowd, they’re doing themselves few favours by resorting to the odious and patently untrue claims about soccer being a game for ’sheilas’ and ‘divers’.

AFL chief Andrew Demetriou hit the airwaves this morning (mp3) and admitted to concerns as to how the league could stage a season without access to the MCG. Cancelling the season would appear to be an extreme measure, but he is charged with running the AFL and on behalf of its many and significant stakeholders and is entitled to be demanding more concrete answers than he appears to be getting from the FFA, who you can imagine are telling the powerbrokers at FIFA whatever it is they want to hear.

“The MCG for 16 weeks? Sure. And we can even chuck in some steak knives as well.”

In its defence, the AFL has never declared its opposition to Australia’s World Cup bid. Nor have the NRL and the ARU. The stance of Australia’s other three footballing codes is one of cautious support, but surely that support depends on the terms and conditions under which the World Cup would be staged. That’s just fair and reasonable.

And in any event, it’s all just speculation. The informed mail is that if we get the World Cup at all, it will be in 2022. Plenty of time for a Bex, a good lie down and to then come up with a workable plan.