The Socceroos are likely to play World Cup qualifiers in Australia with crowds over the next couple of months, but there is likely to be a catch, according to Football Australia boss James Johnson.
Australia was forced to play last week's home qualifier against China at a neutral venue in Qatar because of strict COVID-19 regulations and protocols in their own country.
Ahead of Tuesday night's match versus Vietnam, FA chief executive Johnson revealed the green and gold were confident of playing matches in Australia during the two upcoming FIFA international windows in October and November.
However, any matches will likely be held at Sydney's Bankwest Stadium in front of vaccinated crowds with the NSW government likely to relax regulations quicker than other states, according to Johnson.
"There’s a policy around getting people back into stadiums (possibly with vaccine certification or negative COVID tests)," Johnson told FTBL.
"NSW and the federal government have got to the point where they’re just going to open up, push through and get vaccinations to about 70 per cent of the population. That’s when things are going to soften.
"I’m actually confident at this stage that we’ll see crowds at hopefully at least one of those October and November games.
Here's how we think the Socceroos will line up tonight against Vietnam at 10pm (AEST) 👇
— Sporting News AU Football (@SNAUFootball) September 7, 2021
Would you make any changes? 🤔#VIEvAUS #AsianQualifiers pic.twitter.com/57xaQbW2yc
“I don’t see the other states, particularly Queensland and Western Australia, as necessarily following the same [opening up] strategy at this point
"All of a sudden playing national level competitions becomes a bigger challenge than international football because of the different ways the states are tacking COVID.
"I’m more confident of playing national team football in Australia right now than I am playing A-League, W-League and FFA Cup.
"There are a lot of issues over how the various states tackle COVID and that’s going to have a real impact on the sport."
Australia is scheduled to play four World Cup qualifiers across the upcoming October and November international windows.
The green-and-gold will take on Oman (home) and Japan (away) in October, before playing Saudi Arabia (home) and China (away) in November.
