"There is a bump-in and bump-out period – I think it's three weeks – and we have managed to reach an accommodation with the NRL so we will be able to comply with the bump-in period[at rectangular venues in Brisbane,Sydney and NZ].

"We just worked with what we knew we had. If we could get[the] venues,that would have been great.

"We understand that they have got to look after their code but we have managed to come up with a cocktail of venues between Australia and NZ that suits this tournament.

"The bid team had the dialogue early on[with the AFL] but when it became clear that we weren't going to be able to reach an accommodation with them on venues like Optus[Stadium] in Perth,the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide,we just dealt with what we knew we could lock in."

FFA officials,with memory of how the AFL had played hardball over ground availability more than a decade ago when the 2010 World Cup bid was being put together,went into talks with the Melbourne-based body under few illusions.

In the end,they decided that pushing to gain access to any ground in Victoria bigger than AAMI Park was not worth the effort. The AFL,insiders said,would have set conditions and demanded considerable financial compensation for the disruption their code would have faced – conditions which would have been economically unviable.

In the end the Rugby Union organisations in Australia and New Zealand and the NRL were far more willing to negotiate and that is why the decisive games in the tournament will be staged in Brisbane,New Zealand and Sydney.

Soccer-loving Melburnians have faced similar frustration in the past,most notably in the 2015 Asian Cup,when the quarter-final between South Korea and Uzbekistan was the highest-profile game played in the city.

Victorian officials at the time did not bid for a semi-final as they felt that there would be more interest in the Australian Open tennis and a one-day cricket international. In the end,Sydney staged the final in front of 76,000 fans who saw the Socceroos triumph over South Korea in extra time.