Perth played host to four Premier League teams over the past week and each of their head coaches was positive about their experiences in Australia.
While the awful weather put a dampener on things for the ICON Festival of International Football, there were far more pros than cons to travelling across the globe in preparation for the upcoming Premier League season.
Optus Stadium hosted two games that attracted a total of 92,147 spectators, with Manchester United again proving to be massive drawcard. Despite the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo, the Red Devils set a new record for a football match at the venue with 58,228 fans turning out for the clash with Aston Villa.
They also attracted a crowd of 5000 for Thursday’s open training session at the WACA Ground, and Leeds United fans turned out in good numbers for a similar opportunity at Fremantle Oval the day before.
While Aston Villa and Crystal Palace opted to train behind closed doors, both clubs held fan events that included a first look at their respective new away and third shirts.
With such a large ex-pat community in Western Australia, the prospect of watching big name teams and players up close and personal was always going to go down well.
“When we sat down and organised the trip, [Villa Chief Executive Officer] Christian Purslow put this to me and the conversation was pretty clear that we have to make sure the team, the friendlies and where we play the friendlies has to be the priority because we’re preparing for the season and it’s always got to be about football,” said Villa boss Steven Gerrard.
“In my position, you’ve got to respect that these are huge organisations and institutions that need to grow and expand globally.
Villa made plenty of friends on their travels and held a free coaching forum in conjunction with Football West. Meanwhile, the Villa Foundation helped run sessions for the visual and hearing impaired, with Gerrard making an appearance at one of them.
“You need to come out and see your fans,” said Gerrard who was in Perth for the first time. “We’ve got fans all over the world. In the coming years, we’ll visit different places and try to get up close and personal with as many as we can.”
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Leeds United were given the freedom of Fremantle and also made a visit to Perth Zoo, with coach Jesse Marsch expressing his delight at the passionate support for his team.
“Everybody’s been incredibly welcoming, the amount of scarves that we’ve seen in town already has been very impressive,” he said after training on Wednesday.
“It was the same in Brisbane and also at the Gold Coast. So many of our fans coming out, showing passion for our team, talking about staying up at night to watch us play. It’s very exciting to be here.”
Crystal Palace have the lowest profile of the sides who visited Perth but they were still very well received, even if coach Patrick Vieira was a bit taken aback by it all.
“I’ve been surprised to have so many people coming to watch our training session, to see the love people have for Crystal Palace and what’s interesting to me as well is there’s a large fan base here,” he said.
The Londoners brought a very young squad with them to Australia but gave a good account of themselves on and off the park; the players popped along to the WA Museum while in town and the story of AFL great Nicky Winmar and his battle against racism resonated with them.
“Obviously they have a massive culture here and an incredible country that has been around for a very long time,” said goalkeeper Jack Butland.
“There is a lot of history to learn about, but Nicky Winmar at the end was something that we are dealing with in the UK still: racism within our sport. He took that on head on.”
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Manchester United also travelled to Perth back in 2019 but this time they are under different management with Erik ten Hag recently appointed as the club’s new Head Coach.
“In this part, it’s really nice and I think you feel the tourism is really great,” he told reporters at a press conference on Friday. “I think a lot of tourists are willing to visit this incredible, nice city to stay here.
“What I always like from Australia, and I smelt it in Melbourne and you smell it here in Perth as well, that the sports culture is really important for this country.”
WA has become a popular destination for Premier League sides for a number of reasons – they can fly directly to and/or from Perth to the UK, the stadium is world class (even if the pitch isn’t), and the accommodation, training grounds and match venue are all in close proximity to each other.
“To be the only jurisdiction to have four immensely popular international football teams fly in for two matches at Optus Stadium, this time around, is about as big as it gets in terms of blockbuster sporting events,” said WA Premier Mark McGowan at the event’s launch.
Fans flocked to the games from other parts of Australia, Asia and the UK and gave a much needed boost to a tourism industry that suffered setback after setback for two years.
The State Government is already targeting more high profile fixtures at Optus Stadium, and WA football fans will be hoping to see top level teams in the flesh in 2023 and beyond.
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