Asian sports bosses remain confident they can ride out the global financial crisis despite conceding the region is not immune and they will have to start tightening their belts. Leading officials from football, cricket, golf, rugby and the Olympics are already bracing themselves for the possible flow-on effects of the global financial meltdown. However, while most administrators are adopting a cautious approach, they also believe the burgeoning Asian sports market is better placed to weather the storm than the more established American and European sports. “The vast majority of sport in Asia is still amateur and the cost of the financial crisis (will) not mean anything for them,” Asian football's most powerful man, AFC President Mohammed Bin Hammam, told Reuters. “For the time being I don't think any of these (major sporting) projects will be affected. But we must wait and see for the coming future how it develops.” Bin Hammam said the AFC were already prepared for any financial problems because they had begun reducing their own expenditure well before the market collapse. “We have been facing these before the financial crisis. It started since the beginning of the year and not with the collapse of the markets,” Bin Hammam said. “The cost of services went up sharply because of the increase in oil prices. It increased our operating costs by 40 percent. (But) in terms of sponsorship and TV rights, these have not been affected and I don't anticipate that it will. We have signed contracts until 2012 and I don't see any chance of revenues from these going down.” The Dubai-based International Cricket Council is also optimistic about its future with the sport currently enjoying a boom period in Asia. Cricket is a popular sport in India, which has already been awarded the co-hosting rights to the next World Cup in 2011 and is leading the push for the expansion of Twenty20 competitions. “The ICC has a number of long-term commercial and broadcast agreements that we believe should stand it and the game of cricket in general in good stead during any potential downturn in economic conditions,” an ICC spokesman told Reuters. Asian golf, a sport which has always been heavily dependent on financial institutions for sponsorship, is adopting a more wary outlook on the future. The Asian tour has been steadily growing in recent years but golf's reliance on corporate support is worrying Asian Tour executive chairman Kyi Hla Han. “From our side the banks that are putting in money into our tour like Barclays for the Singapore Open, UBS for Hong Kong and HSBC, they haven't really been showing signs they want to back out,” Han said. Organizers of Tokyo's bid to stage the 2016 Summer Olympics insist the crisis will have no effect on their plans. The Japanese capital was one of four cities shortlisted by the International Olympic Committee to stage the Games. The other final candidates were Chicago, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro. The winner will be announced in October 2009. In Australia, which has four football codes all competing in the same marketplace, administrators are already having second thoughts about their expansion plans. Rugby union, rugby league, Australian Rules and soccer officials have all signalled their intentions to grow their own competitions but the sudden crisis has forced them to tread carefully in a congested market. Rugby union will be the first of the major football codes to renegotiate its broadcasting deal, at the end of this year. The chairman of the Football Federation of Australia warned the slowdown would effect everyone in sport.
